How do people deal with anxiety or depression?
What you should know about this indicator
- Respondents were first asked whether they had 'felt so anxious or depressed that they could not continue their regular daily activities as they normally would for two weeks or longer'. Those who replied "yes" were then asked about different approaches to dealing with this anxiety or depression.
- Answers from demographic groups with fewer than 100 participants were left out of this data.
- This data comes from the Wellcome Global Monitor 2020, a survey that Wellcome ran with Gallup. It asked about views and experiences of mental health in 113 countries and territories.
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Dealt with anxiety or depression by taking prescribed medication”, part of the following publication: Saloni Dattani, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, Hannah Ritchie, and Max Roser (2023) - “Mental Health”. Data adapted from Wellcome and Gallup. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261027-123016/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.html [online resource] (archived on October 27, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
Wellcome and Gallup (2021) – processed by Our World in DataFull citation
Wellcome and Gallup (2021) – processed by Our World in Data. “Dealt with anxiety or depression by taking prescribed medication” [dataset]. Wellcome and Gallup, “Wellcome Global Monitor 2020 – Mental health” [original data]. Retrieved October 27, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261027-123016/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.html (archived on October 27, 2026).Download
Quick download
Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.
Data API
Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.
Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false&approach=improved_healthy_lifestyle_behaviorsMetadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false&approach=improved_healthy_lifestyle_behaviorsExcel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false&approach=improved_healthy_lifestyle_behaviors")Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests
# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false&approach=improved_healthy_lifestyle_behaviors", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})
# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false&approach=improved_healthy_lifestyle_behaviors").json()R
library(jsonlite)
# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false&approach=improved_healthy_lifestyle_behaviors")
# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false&approach=improved_healthy_lifestyle_behaviors")Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ways-of-dealing-with-anxiety-depression.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false&approach=improved_healthy_lifestyle_behaviors", encoding("utf-8") clear