HEALTH

Over three-fourths of men, as well as women, are satisfied with their physical and mental health. There are minimum differences regarding the engagement in physical activities that help maintain good health (slightly more men than women are engaged in such activities). In men, as expected, satisfaction decreases with age and is less in lower educated men than in higher educated ones.

 

 

Younger men engage in much more physical activity than men over 40 years of age. While four-fifths of the youngest men engage in regular physical activity (79.4 agree or fully agree), only 29.3% of 51-60-year-old men have regular physical activity. Since a relatively small number of answers included healthy diet, it is evident that there is a plenty of room for improvements in this domain in terms of prevention. Approximately one-fifth of men sometimes feel depressed and lost, and this issue could be worked on in the future. Also, one-fifth of respondents are under stress or feel nervous and anxious. About one-fourth of men would like to lose weight and nearly half of them would like to have a muscular body, which is particularly pronounced in young men.

Men sustained injuries in 8.9% of cases, including as a result of violence – 1.8%, traffic or some other accident – 3.6% and disease – 3.5%. As many as 3.4% of the youngest men (18-24 years old) sustained injuries due to violence as opposed to 0.8% of the oldest men. As regards stress, anxiety and nervousness, women more often present them as a problem (about one-third of women fully or mainly agree) than men (one-fifth).

Asked about the last time they sought help in a health care institution, 16.3% of men answered that they had sought help in the past three months, 32.2% in the last year and 22.9% in the last two years. 27.1% of men over 40 and 37.3% of men over 51 years of age went to prostate examination. The incidence of visiting a doctor for this purpose grows with the level of education. 12.3% of men from the sample got tested for HIV, mainly those 25-40 years of age. Every fifth man with the highest level of education was tested for HIV. Every fourth man uses traditional and alternative medicine to improve his health. As many as 40.4% of men over the age of 51 use such methods. The more educated are somewhat more inclined to use these methods than the less educated, but the differences are minimal.

When men have a problem, they seek help less often than women. As many as 31.6% of men do not seek help from anyone, while the percentage of women with that answer is 20.6%. However, when they do seek help, they usually address their spouse/female or male partner. Women, however, seek help more often and turn to friends, parents, and siblings more often. In other words, women have a more developed support network than men, which probably contributes to the fact that they seek help more often. Men have a lower level of “emotional literacy” in the patriarchal culture, and also of self-understanding, which makes it less likely for them not only to recognise the existence of a problem in front of others, but also to turn to others for help. Moreover, these data show that men are more dependent on good relationships with their partner, precisely because their support network is actually less developed.

A total of 43.1% of men do not smoke, while 13.2% of them (compared to 38.1% of women) “never” drink alcohol. It is especially encouraging that the youngest men (18-24) smoke less than older ones, and that more of them “never” consume alcohol. When it comes to getting drunk (5 or more alcoholic beverages on one occasion), 31.2% of men “never” do that, while 40.5% of them do it “less than once a month”. 1.5% of men (and 0.4% of women) do it “every day or almost every day”.

 

Drugs were used most often by 25-30-year-old men, out of whom only 64.6% have “never” used any drugs. The youngest men (18-24 years old) used cannabis (18.9%) and ecstasy (5.1%). Cannabis is used more by the most educated men, while ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, amphetamine are used more by the least educated ones. Among those who used drugs, 65.2% did not use any drug over the past 12 months, while 19.7% used cannabis. Among the least educated men, only 45.5% of those who had used drugs did not use anything over the past 12 months, which means every second man. They used cannabis in 27.3% of cases. Particularly worrying is the fact that they used new psychoactive substances in 18.2% of cases.

 90.6% of men and 85.0% of women have never considered suicide. Among those who did consider suicide, 10.8% of men and 12.7% of women thought about it in the past month. The men with a lower level of education more often consider suicide, while it is the other way round in case of women. Observed by age, 31-40-year-old women and 51-60-year-old men consider suicide more often.