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Stressful situations in the lives of the ukrainians, 2018

Press-release by Anton Kovalyov

On November 30th - December 14th, 2018 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its` own public opinion poll. Data were collected from 2034 respondents aged 18 and above who are living in all regions of Ukraine except for the AR of Crimea with the method of personal interviewing. The sample was stochastic, and it is representative of the population of Ukraine aged 18 and above. In Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts survey was conducted only in the territories that are controlled by the Ukrainian government. The sample is representative of the population of Ukraine aged 18 and above.

The statistical sampling error (with a probability of 0.95 and for a design effect of 1.5) does not exceed: 3.3% — for indexes close to 50%, 2.8% — for indexes close to 25%, 2.0% — for indexes close to 10%, 1.4% — for indexes close to 5%.

 

The subject of this press release is the changes in the stressful situations in the lives of the Ukrainians that happened over the past year.

 

According to a recent KIIS study, 52% of those polled experienced some sort of stressful situation. Compared to 2017, the number of such situations has not changed significantly (it was 53% in 2017). There is a decrease in the total proportion of respondents who felt helpless and lost faith in themselves (17 percentage points in 2018 versus 21 percentage points in 2017), as well as in the proportion of those who lost their job and found themselves without livelihood (11 percent points versus 15 percentage points respectively). At the same time, the share of people who experienced other stressful situations decreased by three percentage points, that is from 16 in 2017 to 13 in 2018.

The share of respondents who have not experienced any stressful situation in 2018 is 38%, which is by 4% less than in 2017, and is approaching the corresponding index for 2016 (it was 37% then).

There are eight types of stressful situations that happened to the Ukrainians in 2018 the most often:

  • 12% of respondents experienced a serious disease, surgery, which is by 3 percentage points bigger than in 2017;
  • 10% of respondents felt helpless, in 2017 this share was 13%;
  • 9% of respondents went through the death of a significant other  (versus 7% in 2017, the difference is insignificant);
  • 9% of respondents went through the serious illness of a significant other, which is by 3 percentage points less than it was in 2017;
  • 8% of respondents lost the belief in people, faced the meanness (same share as in 2017);
  • 6% of polledwere left with no livelihood, which is by 2 percentage points less than in 2017;
  • 6% of respondents lost the belief in themselves (versus 8% in 2017);
  • 5% lost the job and faced the forced unemployment (versus 7% in 20176 the difference is insignificant).

Graph 1.  Stressful situations in the lives of the Ukrainians that happened over 2018, %  (13% experienced other stressful situations that are not on this list)

 

To some extent, the percentage of those who did not experience any stressful situations can be considered as an integral indicator that characterizes the overall level of stress in society (see Graph 2). We see that the best situation was in 2013, before the conflict in East of Ukraine: 48% of the polled did not experience any stressful situations. In 2014 and 2015, the situation was the worst, since only 35% and 34% of the population did not suffer from the stress6 respectively (65-66% of the population experienced at least one type of stress). The situation improved in 2016 and 2017 when the number of non-stressed people increased to 42%, but in 2018 it fell again to the level of 2016.

Graph 2.  Percentage of the polled who have not experienced any stressful situations


However, if we consider the aggregated classification of stress types (Addition 2, Table 2), then we will see that only a percentage of those who did not experience any stress decreased significantly compared to the pre-war situation in 2013, (perhaps due to those who chose the option “hard to say”). There is no significant difference in all other indicators from 2018 compared to those in 2013: the number of those who survived the illness or the death of the significant other increased by 2 percentage points, and the number of those who experienced other stressful situations decreased by 2 percentage points. However, these changes are insignificant, and all other differences are even smaller. If you compare 2018 to 2017, then it is appropriate to state that the situation either has not changed significantly or has improved somewhat. In particular, the number of those who lost their jobs and livelihoods decreased from 15% to 11%, while the "helplessness and despair, loss of faith in oneself" among the population decreased from 21% to 17%.

 

  2013 2017 2018 
Experience the serious illness or death of a significant other 28 28 30
Loss of job and livelihood 11 15 11
Conflicts with others, loss of faith in people 11 13 12
Survival from attack, robbery, court appeals 5 5 6
Helplessness and despair, loss of faith in oneself 18 21 17
Survival from bombing, shelling 0 1 1
Survived other stressful situations 15 16 13
DID NOT EXPERIENCE ANY STRESSFUL SITUATIONS  48  42 38
HARD TO SAY/DENIAL FROM ANSWERING 2 5 10
Amount of experienced stressful situations 88 99 90

 

By gender:

  • In general, during 2018, women experienced more stressful situations: 48% of male respondents and 56% of female respondents experienced the stressful situation. The result is close to the figures for 2017 (48% and 57% respectively).
  • Among those who felt helpless were almost twice as many women (13%) than men (7%).
  • The proportion of women who experienced a serious illness and/or surgery (14%) is by 5 percentage points higher than the corresponding share of men (9%).
  • It should also be noted that women more often than men lost faith in people and faced adultery (10% vs. 6%, respectively), and lost self-confidence (8% and 5%, respectively). Also, 10% of women and 7% of men experienced severe illness of significant others.
  • At the same time, the proportion of men who lost their jobs and faced forced unemployment (8%) was slightly higher than the corresponding share of women (4%).

By age:

  • People older than 70 years encountered with their own illnesses and surgery (30%, twice the proportion of the representatives of the age group of 60-69), with serious illnesses of close people (13%), with the death of close people (15%), and also felt own helplessness (19%) much more often than representatives of other age groups (see appendix).
  • However, the proportion of respondents aged 18 to 29 who encountered meanness and lost faith in people (10%) is larger than the corresponding proportion of respondents older than 70 years (5%).

Addition 1.

Formulation of the questions from the questionnaire.

Which of the following situations have you experienced in the past year?

PASS THE CARD. MULTIPLE ANSWERS ALLOWED.

 

Experience the serious illness, surgery 1 Loss of faith in people, facing meanness 11
Experience the serious illness of a significant other 2 Loss of belief in self 12
Experience the death of a significant other 3 Serious conflicts with others 13
Live in a mental state close to suicide 4 Being exposed to threats, intimidation 14
Job loss and forced unemployment 5 Survive bombing, shelling 15
Suffer from the attack or robbery 6 Survive other stressful situations 16
Suffer from theft or fraud 7 DID NOT EXPERIENCE ANY STRESSFUL SITUATIONS 17
Left with no livelihood 8 HARD TO SAY 18
Feeling of own helplessness 9 DENIAL FROM ANSWERING 19
Apply for help in court 10    


 

Addition 2. Tables

Table 1.   Which of the following situations have you experienced in the past year? % of those who experienced some of the situations

  2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Experience the serious illness, surgery 9 7 11 11 9 12
Experience the serious illness of a significant other 12 10 14 13 12 9
Experience the death of a significant other 7 6 9 9 7 9
Live in a mental state close to suicide 0 1 0 0 1 1
Job loss and forced unemployment 6 8 9 6 7 5
Suffer from the attack or robbery 1 1 1 1 1 1
Suffer from theft or fraud 2 2 3 4 2 2
Left with no livelihood 5 6 6 9 8 6
Feeling of own helplessness 12 12 13 13 13 10
Apply for help in court 2 2 2 1 2 3
Loss of faith in people, facing meanness 9 8 9 14 8 8
Loss of belief in self 6 5 7 8 7 6
Serious conflicts with others 2 4 3 3 3 2
Being exposed to threats, intimidation - 2 1 1 2 2
Survival from bombing, shelling - 7 6 1 1 1
Survived other stressful situations 15 28 22 12 16 13
DID NOT EXPERIENCE ANY STRESSFUL SITUATIONS  48  35 34 37  42 38
HARD TO SAY/DENIAL FROM ANSWERING 2 4 2 5 5 10

 

Table 2. Which of the following situations have you experienced in the past year? Grouped situations from table 1*)

  2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Experience the serious illness or death of a significant other 28 23 34 33 28 30
Loss of job and livelihood 11 14 15 15 15 11
Conflicts with others, loss of faith in people 11 14 13 18 13 12
Survival from attack, robbery, court appeals 5 5 6 6 5 6
Helplessness and despair, loss of faith in oneself 18 18 20 21 21 17
Survival from bombing, shelling 0 7 6 1 1 1
Survived other stressful situations 15 28 22 12 16 13
DID NOT EXPERIENCE ANY STRESSFUL SITUATIONS  48  35 34 37  42 38
HARD TO SAY/DENIAL FROM ANSWERING 2 4 2 5 5 10
Total (Amount of experienced stressful situations) 88 109 116 106 99 90

*) since each person had the opportunity to select several stressful situations that he/she experienced during the year, then the sum of the percentages may exceed 100 (as it was in 2014-2016). So the sum of several points means not the percentage of people, but the percentage of "person-stress" (by analogy with person-hours – 2 man-stress means that either 2 people survived stress or one person survived two types of stress). For example, the percentage of people who have survived illness or death of close people is 30% of person-stresses, which can be less than 30% of people (see the first line) if some people survived both their illness and illness of a close one during the year.

 

According to the data of last Omnibus, December 2018:

Which of the following situations have you experienced in the past year?

Gender:

  Ukraine in general, % Male Female
Experience the serious illness, surgery 12 9 14
Experience the serious illness of a significant other 9 7 10
Experience the death of a significant other 9 8 9
Live in a mental state close to suicide 1 1 1
Job loss and forced unemployment 5 8 4
Suffer from the attack or robbery 1 2 1
Suffer from theft or fraud 2 3 2
Left with no livelihood 6 5 7
Feeling of own helplessness 10 7 13
Apply for help in court 3 2 3
Loss of faith in people, facing meanness 8 6 10
Loss of belief in self 6 5 8
Serious conflicts with others 2 2 3
Being exposed to threats, intimidation 2 2 2
Survival from bombing, shelling 1 2 1
Survived other stressful situations 13 11 14
DID NOT EXPERIENCE ANY STRESSFUL SITUATIONS 38 41 35
HARD TO SAY/DENIAL FROM ANSWERING 10 11 8

 

Age:

  18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+
Experience the serious illness, surgery 5 3 9 13 15 30
Experience the serious illness of a significant other 5 9 9 7 10 13
Experience the death of a significant other 7 8 7 9 8 15
Live in a mental state close to suicide 0 1 1 2 0 0
Job loss and forced unemployment 6 9 8 6 1 1
Suffer from the attack or robbery 1 1 3 1 1 2
Suffer from theft or fraud 2 3 4 2 3 1
Left with no livelihood 3 7 8 7 5 6
Feeling of own helplessness 5 8 8 13 11 19
Apply for help in court 2 4 4 2 5 1
Loss of faith in people, facing meanness 10 9 9 7 7 5
Loss of belief in self 6 4 8 7 7 7
Serious conflicts with others 3 3 3 3 2 0
Being exposed to threats, intimidation 3 2 2 2 1 1
Survival from bombing, shelling 1 2 1 0 2 0
Survived other stressful situations 13 13 12 14 11 12
DID NOT EXPERIENCE ANY STRESSFUL SITUATIONS 45 41 40 34 39 23
HARD TO SAY/DENIAL FROM ANSWERING 12 8 8 11 10 6

 

 


18.2.2019
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