A recent survey conducted by researchers at the Ontario Veterinary College has found high rates of stress, anxiety and depression among veterinarians. Now they are investigating whether agricultural producers are also suffering.
The preliminary findings of a survey of 500 Ontario veterinary practitioners are alarming, the lead researcher says.
“We used some validated health measures in that and we found that 10 per cent of our respondents met the case definition for depression and a further 15 per cent were in the borderline category,” said Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton, doctor of veterinary medicine and associate professor of epidemiology in the department of population medicine.
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“Half of the respondents classified as being emotionally exhausted and a further 44 per cent met the definition for being depersonalized. We have just finished up with this study and the results were what I would describe as quite alarming,” said Jones-Bitton.
The survey also showed one-third of participants suffer from anxiety.
The veterinarian survey involved 500 practitioners from Ontario and is one of four initiatives in this current research project.
The Ontario Veterinary College has now moved into the next part of the project, looking at Canadian producers’ stress and resilience and the barriers that may exist in seeking help.
“There is a tremendous stigma around mental health in the agriculture sector. What I have heard is that among some farming communities depression can be viewed as, not necessarily a sign of weakness, but a sign of poor work ethic. So, if you are depressed it is because you aren’t working hard enough. If you were busier you wouldn’t ‘have time to be depressed,’ said Jones-Bitton.
“I think that stigma can be a major barrier to help-seeking behaviours, particularly in communities where resources might not be in high abundance and additional concern of not being able to be done in a confidential way.”
This project is first of its kind in Canada. According to Jones-Bitton, there are studies in other countries examining producer stress but the data does not exist for Canada.
Jones-Britton said studies have been done examining the mental health of farmers in the U.K. following foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks and Australia following prolonged droughts. “But, I was rather shocked when I looked at the Canadian literature and there wasn’t a whole lot published on our Canadian producers. That got us talking and we wanted to do this baseline survey to see how our producers are doing — generally speaking, but also how they are doing in times of crisis like these outbreaks.”
The project will look to gather input from farmers through an anonymous survey. The 80-question survey is available online and will be open to Canadian producers until mid-December.
Following examination of the data collected, the college hopes to provide the sector with solid, research-based data that could lead to better resources.
“We hope to create agriculture-specific resources,” said Jones-Bitton, noting the first step involves increasing people’s understanding of the issue. “The information we are gathering will be used in our second arm of research, where we will look to design an emergency response plan that supports producer mental health during times of crisis.”
The researchers hope to attract at least 1,000 Canadian producers and will extract survey results to determine the prevalence of depression, anxiety, burnout and resilience.
“We want to increase the amount and the quality of resources available to our farmers so that we can help improve and further build their resilience and to do that we need to get an idea of where the industry is and what resources are currently available.”
The survey is completely anonymous, is estimated to take 15 minutes and participants are able to skip any questions they would prefer not to answer.
For more information or to take part in the survey please visit, producerwellness.ca.
