Mental health has continued to decline among advertising and media professionals since the start of this year, according to first quarter data from NABS.
Calls to the wellbeing charity relating to mental health jumped by 15% year-over-year to make up a quarter of all calls to the service in the first three months of this year.
Emotional support was the number one reason for calling NABS and accounted for nearly half of all calls, with 59% of emotional support calls related to mental health.
The mental health crisis has led to a 50% year-over-year increase in therapy referrals made by NABS.
NABS CEO Diana Tickell, who steps down from her role at the end of April, attributed the continued uptick in mental health calls to continued fallout from the Covid pandemic.
“Our stats clearly reveal that the pandemic has left its mark on the mental health of people across our industry,” she commented.
In particular, calls related to bereavement increased from 2% in Q1 2021 to 14% in Q1 2022 as individuals continued to process grief from illness, death, and loss.
The second and third largest reasons for contacting NABS were financial support (29%) and redundancy, the latter making up 67% of all digital enquiries across the charity’s online redundancy tool and SupportBot.
Uzma Afridi, head of careers at NABS, noted: “Many people are contacting us with concerns relating to redundancy, confidence and career improvement following the last two years.”
She urged individuals to get in touch for advice and coaching, and to see if they qualify for financial grants to help increase their skillset.
Tickell added: “Our industry cannot ignore this upward trend [in mental health concerns]. If you’re struggling, please call us for help, whatever your issue.”
