More than five million Canadians experienced some form of mental health disorder in 2022, a new Statistics Canada study has revealed.
, the percentage of Canadians aged 15 years and older who met the criteria for an alcohol use disorder diagnosis in the past year fell to 2.2 per cent in 2022 from 3.2 per cent in 2012.The percentage of Canadians who met the criteria for cannabis and other substance use disorders remained relatively steady, according to the study.
"The prevalence was lower among Chinese, Filipino, South Asian and Black people in Canada, as compared with non-racialized, non-Indigenous people. Differences in prevalence could be related to socio-cultural differences in willingness to report symptoms of mental illness or related to the stigma associated with mental illness," StatCan said.
Counselling is the most common form of mental health care in Canada for people with a mental health disorder. Medication and mental health information were second and third most common respectively. MHACS used a modified version of the World Health Organization's Composite International Diagnostic Interview to classify people with select mood, anxiety or substance use disorders. Although this is not a clinical diagnosis, this is a standardized instrument that is used to assess mental disorders in population surveys according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders version IV criteria.