Early findings of a nationwide survey show mental health help is needed and wanted for farmers.
The survey was analyzed by University of Guelph professor Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Ontario Veterinarian College.
She was surprised by the lack of literature on mental health in the agriculture industry. She and her colleagues started searching for baseline measures of mental health in Canadian farmers.
The survey was handed out nationwide from September 2015 to January 2016 and garnered over 1,100 responses.
Jones-Bitton found that farmers suffer from higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression as well as emotional exhaustion and cynicism (signs of burnout) than the norm.
The survey showed 60 per cent of producers met some level of anxiety classification, 35% of producers had levels of depression and 45% showed signs of high stress.
“Producers are (under) a lot of stresses, many of which are outside of their control … there’s constantly changing weather, changing government, disease outbreaks both for livestock and crops, very long hours, largely working in social isolation for many people, lack of ability for significant downtime,” said Jones-Bitton.
The next part of the study will develop a mental health literacy program and tailored education program.
“These literacy programs have been shown to help increase knowledge of mental illnesses, as well as decrease stigma and increase our skills and confidence in being able to openly discuss mental health,” she said.
The second phase will help combat the stigma with seeking treatment, which was shown to still be prevalent in the agriculture community.
The survey showed that 75% of producers said that seeking mental help can be useful, two-thirds said they would actually seek help if they were upset for a long time and two-thirds said seeking professional help does not make them weak, explained Jones-Bitton.
However, she added, about 40% said they would be worried about getting help because of what other people might think.
“There was still some concern about what other people might think but I think that’s normal,” said Jones-Bitton.
“I think the more we continue speaking about mental illnesses, and just recognizing it’s just one of a number of illnesses that we face and try to more normalize mental health, I think the better off we’ll be and get rid of any stigma that’s remaining.”
