A survey of attitudes towards mental health issues has revealed some startling results, showing that many Australians still hold stigmatising attitudes towards people with depression.

 

Beyondblue’s CEO Kate Carnell said the Depression Monitor Survey found that many people don’t know the facts, and don’t know what to do if someone they know shows signs of depression.

 

“Of the three thousand people who took part in this national telephone survey, around one in three respondents (35%) wrongly believed it is helpful to keep out of the way of someone who is depressed, one in four (25%) wrongly believed people with severe depression should pull themselves together and around one in five (21%) wrongly thought it is helpful to encourage a depressed person to ‘put on a brave face and push on’,” Ms Carnell said.

 

“The Depression Monitor also showed: eight out of 10 (80%) respondents agreed that people with depression ‘feel that they are letting their family down almost nine out of 10 respondents (86%) agreed that people with depression may be ‘afraid to tell anyone else about it.”

 

Ms Carnell said: “Around a million Australian adults live with depression at any one time and we know less than half of them get the help they need – so this puts thousands of people with untreated depression at greater risk of suicide.”

 

“It would help people with depression immensely if their colleagues, friends or family members didn’t ‘keep out of their way’ and didn’t tell them to ‘pull themselves together, put on a brave face and push on.

 

“What would be helpful, would be to talk to the person about how they’re feeling and arrange a visit to the GP. Depression is an illness, not a weakness. People can’t snap out of it, just like they can’t snap out of asthma or diabetes...and just like these illnesses, there are treatments for depression that work.”