36% Singapore employees at high risk of mental health concerns

SINGAPORE: Research from TELUS Health showed that while worker mental health has improved from October last year, over a third of workers still have a high risk of mental health concerns.

The TELUS Health study says, “Despite incremental improvement, the mental health of workers in Singapore remains strained.”

This is also aligned with another recent study that showed that stress and mental health issues are high on the list of challenges that Singapore workers face.

It also found that 36 per cent of workers have a high mental health risk, 46 per cent have a moderate mental health risk, and 18 per cent have a low mental health risk.

Moreover, managers are not doing quite so well, with their mental health scores having gone down. In comparison, the mental health scores of non-managers have improved since last October.

Nevertheless, mental health scores are still higher for managers (63.3) than non-managers (61.6).

As for differences among different job sectors, the study found that labourers have a lower mental health score (54.9) than office (63.9) and service industry workers (63.2).

Read also: Survey shows mental health was top societal concern for Singaporeans in 2023

The study appears to identify younger workers as particularly vulnerable to mental health challenges, especially because it found that they are more likely not to have trusted personal and work relationships.

Over half of younger participants (55 per cent) said that they have no trusted workplace relationships, and among those with this response, the mental health score is at least 15 points lower than among those who have this type of relationship.

Even more concerning is that they are over four times more likely to feel isolated than those who have trusted workplace relationships.

Additionally, 42 per cent say they don’t trust anybody enough to be their true selves, and among those with this response, their mental health score is 22 points lower than those who have someone they can be their true selves with.

This challenge affects workers under 40 more than other age groups.

Nevertheless, the overall Mental Health Index (MHI) of Singapore workers for the beginning of this year is 62.6, the second period in a row that has shown improvement. This score, however, is still within the “strained” category.

Men are doing slightly better than women, with the former scoring 62.8 and the latter 62.4. /TISG

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