{"id":793850,"date":"2026-10-06T15:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793850\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T15:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:32:09","slug":"almost-half-of-young-adults-cite-cost-issue-in-seeking-mental-health-support-says-survey-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793850\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost half of young adults cite cost issue in seeking mental health support, says survey \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than four in 10 young adults aged 25-34 (44 per cent), cited cost as an issue when looking for mental health<\/a> support, according to new research. <\/p>\n

That compared to 12 per cent of those aged 65 and older who said affordability was an issue, according to a study from Mental Health Ireland. <\/p>\n

Across all age groups, 31 per cent cited cost as a barrier to supporting their mental health, up from 26 per cent in 2025.<\/p>\n

Other barriers to supporting personal mental health included not prioritising it (26 per cent), being unsure of how to access support (22 per cent) and lack of time (19 per cent). The survey also found only 39 per cent of 18\u2013 to 24-year-olds were \u201cvery open\u201d to discussing mental health, compared with 63 per cent of 55\u2013 to 64-year-olds.<\/p>\n

The findings were released in advance of World Mental Health Day on October 10th. October is also World Mental Health Month. <\/p>\n

As to what would make it easier to ask for support, 44 per cent of people identified affordable support, 24 per cent said access to relevant information and 22 per cent identified support available in their community. <\/p>\n

The annual survey also found that 81 per cent reported openness to talking about their mental health. However, one in three people (33 per cent) feared they would make things worse if they tried to support someone else, while 28 per cent were not confident they would make a difference.<\/p>\n

The most common barrier to supporting someone else was uncertainty about whether they wanted help (35 per cent). A further 23 per cent said they did not feel informed enough about mental health, while 19 per cent were unfamiliar with the signs that someone needed support. <\/p>\n

The survey showed that money management was the biggest stressor (66 per cent), followed by health and wellbeing (64 per cent) and work-related stress (50 per cent). <\/p>\n

Spending time with friends and family (58 per cent) and exercise (57.5 per cent) were found to be the leading activities people regularly used to manage stress, followed by healthy habits including sleep and diet. <\/p>\n

Spending time with friends and family rose from 56.7 per cent in 2025 to 58 per cent in 2026. <\/p>\n

Mindfulness was used regularly to manage stress by 17.9 per cent of respondents, while 11.6 per cent sought therapy. <\/p>\n

The research highlighted the role that spending time outdoors can play in how people look after their mental health. Some four in ten (41 per cent) said they regularly spent time in nature to manage their stress. <\/p>\n

When asked about barriers to spending time in nature to improve their mental health, 43 per cent said nothing prevented them, 23 per cent said they did not have time and 17 per cent said they did not feel safe. <\/p>\n

Dubliners were particularly likely to report being time poor, with 29 per cent citing time as a barrier compared with 23 per cent overall. <\/p>\n

Mental Health Ireland chief executive Dr Lisa Cuthbert said: \u201cThis research tells us that people want to look after their mental health and are already taking practical steps to do that whether that\u2019s exercising, spending time with family and friends or getting out into nature. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, it also shows us what can get in the way of good mental health. Cost matters, especially for younger people, and time matters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than four in 10 young adults aged 25-34 (44 per cent), cited cost as an issue when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[102,1906,6623,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-793850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}