Mental wellbeing of Norwegian farmers: what are the main facilitators and barriers? An exploratory study

Objectives: Farmers are among the occupational groups with the highest risk of mental illness. This exploratory study aimed to investigate how Norwegian farmers perceive different facilitators and barriers factors of mental well-being in their everyday lives and the possible relationships between these factors and overall mental well-being.
Methods: This study included 265 Norwegian farmers (142 males and 123 females) who responded to an online survey. The five-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index was employed to evaluate farmers’ mental well-being.
Results: The results showed that 34.7% of the respondents reported well-being scores where they should be further screened for major depression. Female farmers reported significantly lower mental well-being scores than male farmers. Furthermore, full-time farmers had lower well-being scores than part-time farmers. The factors that most respondents perceived to be barriers to well-being in everyday life were unstable economics and a lack of appreciation for their work. The primary facilitators were stable and secure economics and a good social network within and outside of agriculture.
Conclusion: Analysis suggests that the presence of perceived barriers seem to have a higher importance on farmers well-being, than the perception of facilitators. Future studies should further investigate the effects of individual barriers on mental well-being.
Keywords: farmer, mental health, mental wellbeing, occupational health, online survey.