Primary research: analysis

 In this post I will analyze what I have researched through my questionnaire. 

The aim of my questionnaire was to gain a deeper understanding of the problem of mental health among youth. Generally I wanted to see if young people see the problem as existent and if they think campaigns can change something about the problem. I have my own opinions about the subject, but it was very interesting to me to see opinions given by other people. 

I had 36 people take part in my research, people were from the age of 15 up to 22 years old. Most people that filled in the questionnaires were women, therefore the research is mostly relevant to females, however I was able to get some interesting information also about the men that filled in the questionnaire. 

Firstly I think it is important to look at the answer to the question 'Have you ever experienced any sort of mental health problems?'. This question lets me see if the problem is truly existent and the research showed me that it really is. 

Only 16.7% of people answered that they did not experience any sort of mental health problems. I think it is fair, not everyone is struggling mentally, however almost 20% answered 'I don't know', which could possibly mean two things, people just don't remember, which is a natural human thing, or people are not sure what falls under the category of mental health problems. This is a much bigger problem because it shows the lack of education about different issues people can have. Some people may think that depression is the only existing mental illness, some may not know what anxiety is or what OCD is. There are many mental health problems people can have, some are not very big and some are enormous. Different people can deal with different problems differently and something small for one person can cause someone else to hit a rock bottom. I think this is beautiful because it shows how everyone is different, but it also is a curse because that means people never knows how others are feeling. 

Still, most people answered 'yes' which means, young people really do struggle with mental health and they do have problems connected to it. 

One thing that I have also saw from this one question is that most of the answers 'no' were submitted by males. As I mentioned, I do not have many answers from men, therefore I do not want to jump to conclusions, but it could show that men are experiencing mental health problems less or they do not admit to themselves that they deal with mental health problems. It could be caused by the toxic masculinity that media is portraying and because of that they can possibly tell themselves that they can't struggle with mental health. 

My next question was strictly connected to my project. I have asked people to answer on a scale from 1 to 5, to what extent they agree with the statement that their mental health problems are more visible at night [1 being I strongly disagree and 5 being I strongly agree]. 33% of participants were neutral, so they answered '3', however 50% answered 4 or 5, therefore they do agree with the given statement. This shows that it is true that during the night people tend to think more and then their brains are in control. 

Generally at night people are not exposed to anything that would take their brain off of their thoughts and this is when they are left alone to think about their problems. I can see where the anxiety and other strong feelings come from and I can see that more people agree with me and based on their experiences, they think the same way. 

I was pleasantly surprised with the answers to the next question. The question asked whether people felt that they can ask for help without the fear of being judged. Most people actually agreed with the statement which is good. It shows the awareness of those people. However, there were people who answered that they disagree or strongly disagree, so the problem is existent, but not on a scale that I thought, which is a good thing. 

When I asked whether mental health is still a taboo topic, sadly most people said 'yes'. This could possibly depend on the country they are from because different places approach the problem differently, however generally most people answered 'yes' so raising awareness of the subject is needed nowadays. 

63.3% of the participants think campaigns can help to change that, and only 10% thinks they can't which shows that overall people see campaigns as important in educating the environment. 

The last question I have asked whether people think mental health awareness is important and if so, why. Out of all of the participants, only one person said 'I don't know', which could possibly show the lack of education in this area and the rest said 'yes' and gave many interesting reasons. Here are some of the answers that I found interesting. 

I think this level of the answers shows that youth understands the problem and they do want to change the situation but they may not have the tools to educate older generations. 

I think this research helped me discover how youth see mental health and how important they find mental health awareness. With the knowledge I have gained, I know I am going in the right direction with my project with educating people about the issue.