About 18.5% of Chile's population shows signs of, suspects they have, or has mental health problems, according to CNN Chile. The outlet reports that symptoms associated with depression, perceived loneliness, insomnia and anxiety reached their worst levels since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The figure comes from the twelfth edition of the Mental Health Thermometer, produced by the Chilean Safety Association (ACHS) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (UC). The report does not specify when the survey was conducted or the sample size.
The phenomenon is global in scale. Worldwide, 1,200 million people live with a mental health disorder, equivalent to 14% of the population. This means that approximately one in seven people worldwide faces this condition.
"Mental health is the leading cause of disease burden worldwide," Carlos Ibáñez, director of Red Salud Mental es Salud, told CNN Chile. According to the specialist, depression and anxiety are the most common psychiatric problems and affect people, their families, their work and their communities.
Olga Toro, who holds a doctorate in Public Health from the University of Chile, said prevalence had increased and that this change was observed "to a very significant extent from the pandemic onward".
Women lead the indicators, a gap that also appears in other studies. Mariane Krause, a psychologist and provost of UC, said this difference occurs when women are more exposed to stressors and face excessive demands.
Tania Hutt, a sociology academic at UC, pointed to structural factors. Among them, she highlighted the burden of caring for children, older adults and other dependent people, work that, she explained, society places on women and that increasingly conflicts with other roles.
Men receive fewer diagnoses and seek help less frequently. According to the latest official figures cited by the outlet, suicide mortality is about four times higher among men than among women.
Javiera Duarte, a psychology academic at Diego Portales University (UDP), linked that gap to traditional masculine ideals, such as the idea that men should manage on their own and avoid showing vulnerability. She added that people with fewer friends or who isolate themselves tend to experience more anxiety, depression and loneliness. This is an association, rather than a demonstrated causal relationship.
The cost of care also raises concerns. Some 49.4% of survey respondents feel high levels of stress at the possibility of needing treatment or medication and being unable to afford it. Another 49.2% fear they will not receive adequate medical care.
In funding, Chile is far below the average of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the group of countries to which it belongs. Those countries allocate an average of 6.7% of their health budgets to mental health, while Chile allocates just over 2%.
"To consider making a significant change, we also need to be able to fund that significant change," Ibáñez said. The gap remains as Congress debates the 2027 Budget.
