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Key observations from the 2021-22 New Brunswick Wellness Survey have been released.
The New Brunswick Health Council (NBHC) conducted the annual survey in all public schools.
The survey’s objective is to evaluate the wellness of students directly from their perspective.
“For this survey, we got approximately 42,000 students between grades six to 12 that answered,” said Stéphane Robichaud, CEO of NBHC.
“We asked questions about how they view their school, their community, the type of support they’re receiving,” continued Robichaud.
The survey found several key observations, including an increase in the number of students reporting they are experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression.
“We weren’t surprised to see this. We knew with the pandemic there would be an impact, but this provided a measure of the extent of feeling anxious or depressed,” mentioned Robichaud.
“Now, within the scope of feeling anxious and depressed, it stands to notice that students who don’t identify as binary from a gender perspective, they’ve had significantly higher feelings of depression and anxiety, feeling isolated, so that was a particularly worrisome trend within the results.”
Another observation that seems to be getting worse, he said, is students reporting not getting eight or more hours of sleep per night.
“It’s down to about 30 per cent in general, and it’s actually 14 per cent within those who don’t identify as a boy or a girl. Sleep plays an important role at that age, both for their mental and physical health,” mentioned Robichaud.
Another key observation found few students follow the recommendations for healthy lifestyles.
However, the survey also noted that smoking, alcohol, and cannabis consumption among students has decreased.
For more information about the survey, CLICK HERE.
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