{"id":18326,"date":"2020-05-08T09:15:31","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T13:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/coronavirus-negatively-impacting-mental-health-of-50-of-canadians-survey-145891"},"modified":"2020-05-08T09:15:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T13:15:31","slug":"coronavirus-negatively-impacting-mental-health-of-50-of-canadians-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/05\/08\/coronavirus-negatively-impacting-mental-health-of-50-of-canadians-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus negatively impacting mental health of 50% of Canadians: survey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kelsey Rolfe<\/span> | May 8, 2020 <\/p>\n

Half of Canadian employees said their mental health has been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey by Teladoc Health Inc.<\/p>\n

The survey, which polled more than 1,500 Canadian workers, found women (57 per cent) were more likely to report a harmful impact on their mental health than men (43 per cent). More than half (52 per cent) of respondents between the ages of 18 to 34 felt their mental health had taken a hit. In comparison, respondents over the age of 65 \u2014 notably those most at risk of the virus \u2014 experienced the lowest mental-health impact, with just 37 per cent saying their mental health had worsened.<\/p>\n

David Sides, chief operating officer at Teledoc, says the high number of people experiencing negative effects doesn\u2019t come as a surprise. \u201cThe burden that\u2019s been placed on everyone, [with] working at home, childcare, you might be homeschooling \u2014 I can see why that\u2019s the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: Webinar: Coronavirus and workplace mental health<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The survey also found an increasing number of Canadians are open to remote mental health-care solutions. Two-thirds (62 per cent) of respondents said they\u2019re open to using virtual mental-health care, compared to 40 per cent who said the same in an October 2019 survey. As well, 85 per cent of Canadians who have access to an employee benefits plan said those plans should offer virtual mental-health care as an option.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pleased to see that people are more open to remote forms of mental-health care \u2014 maybe partly by necessity, but that\u2019s a big increase,\u201d says Sides, adding he expects this interest to continue after the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Employers are also taking a variety of actions to support their employees\u2019 mental health, with 39 per cent of respondents saying their employer has offered additional mental-health support, raised the discussion of employees\u2019 mental-health needs and\/or waived fees for mental-health support.<\/p>\n

Read: <\/strong>How to support employees\u2019 mental health during coronavirus<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, Teladoc is one of these employers. In the wake of the pandemic, the company made its own service available to employees\u2019 families. Within the first two weeks, several hundred new users accessed the platform, says Sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe health of your immediate family or extended family also affects your mental health. If your spouse or your parents are having difficulty, it could impact you, especially as many families are compressing right now. Everyone\u2019s in the same space at the same time now. We thought that was an important benefit to make available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kelsey Rolfe | May 8, 2020 Half of Canadian employees said their mental health has been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey by Teladoc Health Inc. The survey, which polled more...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}