Lockdown and mental health
To mark 50 days since the UK lockdown began, readers of the Sunderland Echo have had their say on how the situation has affected them, their relationships and their mental health.
Our lockdown survey was published across this title and 150 others across the UK last week.
It offers an insight into how the coronavirus crisis and lockdown has impacted people in Sunderland and their concerns for the future.
In total, we asked readers 25 questions on their attitude towards the lockdown.
Of these questions, three focused on how the lockdown has affected people’s mental health, relationships and their concerns for the future.
And today we can reveal how people in Sunderland answered.
The majority of Sunderland Echo readers who completed our survey said they felt personally most concerned about the ‘health and wellbeing of family/ friends’ with 61% choosing that.
17% said their ‘own health and wellbeing’, 7.9% said ‘impact on your children's education’, while just over 5% said both ‘security of employment/work’ and ‘your own/household finances’.
By comparison, on a national level, 53% answered that they were most concerned about the ‘health and wellbeing of family/ friends’.
17% said their ‘own health and wellbeing’, 8.6% ‘security of employment/ work’, 8.5% ‘impact on your children’s education’ and 6.7% ‘your own/household finances’.
Of those who took part in the lockdown survey, many Sunderland Echo readers said they had suffered mental health effects due to lockdown.
38% answered that their mental health was 'slightly affected’, 12% ‘severely affected’, 21% 'not much affected’ and 28% ‘not at all affected’.
Nationally, 40% of those surveyed answered that their mental health was ‘slightly affected’, 12% ‘severely affected’, 23% ‘not much affected’ and 22% ‘not at all affected’.
When asked about the effects the lockdown has had on their relationship with a live-in partner or spouse, the majority of Sunderland Echo readers who took part in the survey responded that it had not changed the relationship.
Some 43.6% said that, while 12% said ‘it has brought us much closer together’, 10.5% said ‘it has brought us slightly closer together’, 5% said ‘it has pulled us apart slightly’ and 1.2% said ‘it has pulled us apart a lot’.
25.3% of those taking part said they did not live with a partner or spouse.
The national average of answers on this subject was: 43% ‘it has not changed the relationship’, 12% ‘it has brought us slightly closer together’, 10.5% ‘it has brought us much closer together, 4.9% ‘it has pulled us apart slightly’, 1.6% ‘it has pulled us apart a lot’ while 25.7% answered that they do not live with a partner or spouse.
During the course of this week, we will be publishing more results of what Sunderland Echo readers had to say in our coronavirus lockdown survey.