Financial stressors are having an alarming impact on the mental health of struggling Canadians

The data demonstrates that financial concerns remain a major factor in negative mental health among Canadians, as well as the following major findings:

• 39% of respondents feel economic issues are impacting their mental health.

• Suicide ideation among Canadians experiencing financial challenges is alarmingly high with 41% reporting having thought about suicide in the last year.

• The impacts of inflation are affecting Canadians with 24% reporting having gone into debt as a result.

• Housing and food insecurity remains high with 23% of Canadians concerned about their ability to make rent or mortgage payments, and 37% struggling to feed themselves or their families.

• 29% of Canadians cite an inability to pay as the reason for not accessing mental health care despite needing it (an increase of 11% from our previous polls).

Additional major findings of concern from Poll 17 include:

• There has been an increase in Canadians paying for mental health services out of pocket (from 23% in May 2023 to 30%) due to not having sufficient coverage through their benefits.

• More than one quarter of Canadians (27%) are currently dealing with chronic pain. Although more prevalent among older respondents (35%), more than one in seven (14%) younger Canadians (18-34 years old) also report currently experiencing chronic pain.

• The most common ways of dealing with pain are over-the-counter painkillers (57%), non-pharmacological strategies (52%), and prescriptions (24%).

• Those who have accessed mental health supports in the past year, almost two-fifths (39%) did so only in-person supports, 31% accessed all their supports virtually and almost a third accessed a mix of both (30%).

The above are just some of the key findings of MHRC’s seventeenth poll, part of a multi-year effort to track the mental health challenges of COVID-19 and beyond.