High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Mental Health
People living with chronic disease, especially with mental health problems, is an increasing challenge for society. Depression and other affective disorders were the 5th most common group of conditions reported in GP consultations in 2009/10.
Mental wellbeing is measured in the Scottish Health survey using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) since 2008. WEMWBS asks respondents to read 14 separate statements describing feelings relating to mental wellbeing, and indicate how often they have felt this way over the last two weeks, using a 5 point scale (ranging from none of the time to all of the time). The overall score is calculated by totalling the scores for each item (minimum possible score is 14 and the maximum is 70); the higher a person's score, the better their level of mental wellbeing.
There is a significant association between mean WEMWBS score and age with younger and older age groups (with the exception of the over 75s) showing higher levels of mental wellbeing. There has been no significant change in WEMWBS scores over time.
In Scotland in 2010 there were 781 suicides (including both events of intentional self harm and of undetermined intent). This is equivalent to levels in the mid 1990s. Rates of suicide (standardised by age) increased from the early 1980s to a peak in around 2000. Based on three-year rolling averages there was a 14% fall in suicide rates between 2000-02 and 2008-10. Around three quarters of suicides each year are completed by males.
There has been a continuous increase in the number of prescriptions for antidepressants - from 1.16 million in 1992/93 to 4.3 million in 2009/10, with a commensurate increase in cost. Estimated daily use of antidepressant drugs by the population aged 15 to 90 increased from 1.9% in 1992/93 to 10.4% in 2009/10.
View chart data
Source: Scottish Health Survey
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