Pandemic’s toll on mental health of mothers exceeds fears of researchers, Lancet study finds
2021-03-26 from theglobeandmail.com
Danielle Kimmel said she was taking on more than she could handle even before the pandemic. But by last fall, Ms. Kimmel, who works as a banker, owns her own tanning salon business and is a mother of two young children, hit a wall.
As new research suggests, many Canadian women have been similarly struggling in the past year. In a study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry on Wednesday, a research team led by the University of Calgary found mental-health problems among mothers, between the ages of 25 and 44, surged during the pandemic, with rates of anxiety and depression nearly double what they were pre-COVID-19.
The study, which compared the mental-health survey results of more than 1,300 Canadian mothers between May and June last year against their results from previous years, found 35 per cent of them reported elevated symptoms of depression, and 31 per cent reported elevated symptoms of anxiety during the pandemic. That was up from 19 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, before the pandemic.
Read more here