Highlights from the Pastoral and Ministerial Students Mental/Emotional Health Survey, 2023 (Total # of responses collected = 90)

• Respondents’ distribution: 54 pastors (38 doing full-time and 16 non-full-time; or gender-wise, 35 male and 19 female)  and 36 ministerial students (17 male and 19 female) serving in the Metro-Vancouver area
• Age Range: 79% of the respondents fall in the age range of 41-64
• Pastors score higher in mental/emotional health than ministerial students overall
• Age comparison: The younger age groups tend to score lower compared to the older age groups
• With the PHQ-9 instrument for detecting depression, ministerial students aged 26-40 had the highest ratio of moderate depression while moderately severe depression occurred most in the group of pastors aged 41-55.
• Gender: Female respondents show higher self-evaluated scores in mental health than male respondents.
• Ministerial students were less optimistic than pastors.
• Language: Mandarin speaking pastors score higher than Cantonese and English speaking pastors
• Good mental health criteria: Relationship-based answers (with God, friends and family) are the most popular choices among criteria for good mental health. More ministerial students choose “to be gentle to themselves, have a support group, and rest well/ observe sabbath” compared to pastors as criteria for good mental health
• Top 3 symptoms in the PHQ-9 questions:
  • Feeling tired or having little energy, followed by
  • Little interest / pleasure in doing things followed by
  • Trouble falling/ staying asleep, or sleeping too much
• Top 3 stressors identified (overall):
  • long and irregular working hours,
  • Spouse
  • physical health
• Low self-awareness on mental/emotional health: Participants who show moderate and moderately severe depression scores are unaware of their situation as they scored their mental well-being with a relatively high score
• Loneliness: Ministerial students report higher score of loneliness than pastors
• Top 3 choices of de-stressors: The favored choice of things to do when facing stress are:
  • to talk to someone, followed by
  • watching TV or movie and then
  • exercising
• Resources for supporting mental/emotional health: pastors chose talks, seminars, and workshops as the first choice followed by support groups and then courses and retreat camp as the third option. On the other hand, for ministerial students, the first choice is a support group followed by a retreat camp, and then talks, seminars, and workshops. Topics deemed useful included handling emotions, dealing with conflicts, and getting to know oneself.