Canadians reluctant to talk about depression: report

By Irene Kuan

TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - Many are aware of its symptoms and even worry about suffering from the illness, but few Canadians will talk openly about depression, according to a new survey.

Nearly 60 percent of people questioned in the online poll admitted they were concerned about depression, 28 percent had been diagnosed with the disorder, and 26 percent thought depression would go away if they tried hard enough to overcome it.

"When they talk about mental health issues themselves, they are afraid of the stigma associated with them," Phil Upshall, executive director of the Mood Disorders Society of Canada, which commissioned the poll, said in an interview.

He added that men were more likely to suffer quietly than women because they were not brought up to recognize emotional symptoms and to talk about them.

Men also feared they would encounter discrimination at work if they revealed they have a mental illness.

The survey of 1,000 people also showed people could identify social withdrawal, sleep problems, lost of interest, fatigue and sadness as symptoms of depression.

When asked to identify symptoms from a list, nearly 100 percent knew loss of interest was a sign of a problem and 90 percent said excessive crying was a symptom.

But few people knew physical symptoms such as muscle pain and back ache could indicate depression.