- Stephanie Hegarty
- BBC Population Correspondent
Jiang started to communicate more with her family during the epidemic
A global survey commissioned by the BBC highlights the profound and diverse impact of the coronavirus pandemic on mental health, according to the World Health Organization. An astonishing number of people surveyed in 30 countries report that they feel better now than they did before the pandemic. The survey also indicates that the impact of the epidemic on psychological and mental health is more pronounced in women and young people.
Nguyen Thanh Giang is on the phone with her father as he walks through his garden, and he seems eager to let her see the mango trees. He is happy to communicate with his daughter who lives 400 km away in Ho Chi Minh City.
Before the closure, Jiang was busy running her own printing press and raising her teenage son, she rarely called her family, and two or three years might go by without seeing her parents.
“We haven’t had a great relationship in the past, but following the pandemic, I realized I needed to connect with them more,” she says.
“It really makes me feel like I’m not alone.”
The survey, prepared by GlobeScan, commissioned by the BBC World Service, shows that 36 percent of people around the world said they felt better than they did before the epidemic, while 27 percent said they felt their condition had become worse.
Many also said that spending more time with family and connecting with their community and nature had a positive effect, and they felt that their overall priorities in life were clearer in their minds.
Most residents in Vietnam, India, Egypt and Nigeria said they felt better, while in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong respondents said the opposite.
In the UK, the number of people who said they felt worse than before the pandemic slightly exceeded the number of people who said they felt better, while in the US it was the opposite. In seven other European countries, the impact of the epidemic period was negative on the population.
The survey was conducted online in June and July of this year and included more than 29,000 people.
A WHO spokesperson said: “GlobeScan results show that the epidemic has had a profound impact on the mental health of many…Of course, this impact was not the same, but varied and varied across population groups.”
Like many young mothers, Tran Nguyen Kim Nan struggled during the fourth and toughest lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which began in June of last year.
Tran had just started a new job and had a one-year-old daughter. “It was so stressful that to find time for myself, I would go to the bathroom and stay there for a few minutes…I take a deep breath and go back to my day,” she says.
In almost all of the countries surveyed, women reported a more negative impact of the pandemic on their mental health than men.
But the same factors that caused Tran’s stress back then are now helping her feel better.
The survey also found that parents who live with children under the age of 18 were more likely to say that their mental health is better than it was before the epidemic, compared to others.
“I think the recovery was easy for me because I was so busy with the details and tasks of my daily life, with my work and my child,” Tran says.
The past two years have also seen some major changes in Tran’s life. An important company sought out a new job, bought an apartment with her husband, adopted a cat, and even started learning Japanese.
“I think I became more courageous and bold following the pandemic,” she says. “If I want to do something, I do it immediately without any procrastination or delay.”
Tran says she has become more courageous and bold following the epidemic
But there were areas where men and women had much more in common following the pandemic, such as an increased sense of community and connectedness.
Andrew Oswald, professor of economics and behavioral sciences at the University of Warwick in Britain, cautions once morest over-analyzing what people say regarding how they have felt in the past.
“What we do know is that there is a kind of persistent optimism biased towards the present, which means that people look back and incorrectly tend to think that things were worse then and they are happier now,” he says. This is done by means of extended research by comparing levels of happiness as remembered by people, with actual levels of happiness when measured at that time.”
But he says the findings on gender are consistent with his research.
The World Happiness Report, which uses Gallup survey data collected over the past 10 years in 150 countries, indicates a long-term upward trend in levels of stress, anxiety and sadness in most countries, and a slight decrease in enjoyment of life.
There was also a global rise in the percentage of people who said they donated money to charity, helped strangers, and did volunteer work.
Vietnam moved up two places in the global happiness rankings this year.
At the University of Social Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City, therapist Trin Tan Feh last year noticed a significant improvement in the mental health of her clients, and she is working on a program called a “brain vaccine” that started during the pandemic.
It started with a mental health hotline providing support for people during the lockdown last year, as the city saw a sharp rise in anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Many were also experiencing grief and a sense of loss, especially since three-quarters of the deaths from the coronavirus in Vietnam were in this city.
Globally, a third of people surveyed said they had lost a loved one during the pandemic, and 56 percent said the deaths occurred as a result of the pandemic.
But Trin Tan sees a positive side to all of this – she believes the past year has helped raise awareness of mental health in Vietnam: “Now people know where to seek help when they have mental health issues…when they have anxiety or a seizure.” Panic, they know where to go.”
It also found that during the city’s strict lockdown, people came together and banded together to provide food and support to each other.
“This belief in kindness and civility helped people beat the pandemic,” she says. “On Vaccine for the Mind, there were a lot of people who decided to come and volunteer… After the pandemic, I realized that the list of people on my phone was incredibly long.”
The Globescan survey indicates that the impact of the epidemic varies across generations.
Dang Quang Deng started receiving annoying messages from his readers
When Vietnam went into lockdown, Dang Quang Deng, author of the popular comic magazine Meo Moc, began receiving disturbing messages from his readers.
Dang’s comics are personal diaries of his daily life, his experiences of studying abroad, personal loss, and confinement, in which he appears as a black cat. Dang shares his experiences and daily life with his readers, which encourages them to share their experiences with him.
“There was a lot of disturbing messages regarding trauma, PTSD and things like that,” explains his partner, Wendy Truong. “Most of the message people were young people.”
Together, they decided to start a new illustrated magazine, focused on mental health and offering advice from professionals.
In his research in the UK, Professor Andrew Oswald found that young people were the most affected in terms of mental health, while the elderly were least affected.
The Globescan survey showed that most young people between the ages of 18 and 24 said the pandemic had had a significant impact on their mental health, both positively and negatively.
This may be an indication of the level of awareness or awareness of the importance of mental health.
“My dad is a doctor but he doesn’t realize that mental health is a real problem,” says Wendy. “In Vietnam opinions are very divided on the issue of mental health.”
Wendy adds that younger people she knows are taking care of themselves more than ever, communicating via conference calls, checking on each other more regularly, or taking part in yoga and meditation classes.
Others who seem to have benefited the most are high-income earners and people who live in cities.
This makes sense for Wendy, in a country where young people, who have office jobs, live in urban areas.
“We didn’t take a lot of damage, at least financially, as we might have stayed at home and worked from it, but I don’t think that’s the case for everyone. Especially for the older folks who had to work in the factories,” she says.
“I think it’s a lot easier for millennials.”
A spokesman for the World Health Organization said that the results of the survey confirmed that there was a need for more research on the impact of the epidemic on mental health among specific groups of the population at risk. The spokesperson noted that mental health services have been particularly disrupted during the pandemic and that this has exacerbated the problem.
“Future studies should therefore focus on expanding mental health and psychosocial support services, as an essential component of preparedness and response plans for future public health emergencies.”
Additional reporting by Sarah Habershon
