How to Visualize Mental Health Survey Questions?

Recently, tennis superstar Naomi Osaka forfeited the prestigious French Open citing mental health issues.

This news underscores the significance of improving mental health in your business.

According to One Mind Institute, 25% of employees experience one mental health condition in their lifetime.

Obviously, your staff’s mental health is a critical component of productivity.

Burnout due to changing working conditions can easily take a massive toll on your employees. And this calls for data collection to design programs for combating this workplace problem.

So, how do you gather data to design or optimize your mental health program?

This is where survey-oriented charts, such as Likert Scale Chart, come in.

Likert Chart can help you to measure sentiments, attitudes, and opinions. The survey-oriented chart goes beyond the simple “yes & no” survey questions.

Microsoft Excel lacks Likert Scale Charts for visualizing mental health survey data.

We’re not advising you to do away with the Excel spreadsheet.

Install a particular add-in in your Excel to access ready-made Likert Scale Charts.

Table of Content:

1. What is a Mental Health Survey?
2. Why Do You Need a Mental Health Survey?
3. Best Mental Health Survey Questions
4. How Do You Create a Mental Health Survey Chart for Your Data Stories?
5. Wrap Up

Before jumping into the how-to guide, we’ll address the following question: what is a mental health survey?

What is a Mental Health Survey?

Definition: You can use mental health survey to collect data related to the mental health of your team.

Mental health survey was never a big issue a decade ago.

Yes, until some employees started indulging in addictive and fatal behaviors, such as heavy drinking, to cope with life.

Most businesses acknowledge the need for a healthy employee in all spectrums, including the mental state.

Mental health support went from a nice-to-have to a must-have initiative at the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Fast forward to this year.

The stakes have been raised even higher. We’re seeing massive changes in mental health initiatives.

Thanks to an elevated awareness of the workplace factors that can contribute to poor mental health.

Although some businesses have responded with initiatives like enhanced counseling, four-day workweeks, or setting up mental health days or weeks, they’re not enough.

Yes, the American Psychologists Association (APA) believes that these initiatives are not enough.

“You can simply offer the latest apps or employ euphemisms like well-being” or mental fitness, and expect immediate results, says APA.

The psychologist-led organization recommends employers connect what they say to what they do in mental health matters.

Besides, American Psychologists Association (APA) recommends data-driven strategies, such as organizing surveys.

Since initiatives, like employee satisfaction surveys, are already happening in most businesses, we recommend replicating the same model.

Why?

The collected responses can be analyzed using charts and graphs to visualize employee satisfaction data.

Depending on your objective goal, mental health survey questions can be long or short. These questions provide a standardized framework for measuring and tracking mental health data points.

One of the charts we recommend you use to visualize mental health survey questions is the Likert Scale Chart.

Keep reading to discover why we recommend the Likert Scale Chart.

In the coming section, we’ll address the following question: why do you need a mental health survey?

Why Do You Need a Mental Health Survey?

Mental health surveys can help your business rejuvenate its workplace culture to attract and retain highly skilled employees.

Also, you can easily gain insights into factors that contribute to productivity, such as positive mental health. Essentially, you can easily learn the deep issues inhibiting your team from unlocking their full potential.

Remember, our brains are the engine of everything we do.

To perform at very high levels, we need a positive mind.

Yes, a state of mind that’s calm and positive. A negative mind is a disaster for any business.

The likelihood of quarrels, miscommunications, and intense workplace politics is high in such a tense environment.

Thirdly, mental health survey questions can help you reduce employee turnover, which is costly in the long term.

When you retain your team, you retain investment, skills, and a shared purpose.

Let’s assume you intend to put together mental health survey questions. How will you frame your questions?

Best Mental Health Survey Questions

Your staff is the backbone of your business.

So, it’s in your business interest to investigate their needs (mental and psychological needs).

Remember, the right questions can provide you insight into your employees’ well-being and promote mental health initiatives.

These mental health survey questions also help you:

• Show your concern for members of your team who are struggling
• Also, you’ll be able to encourage a dialogue about their mental state
• These questions can help your employees to reflect on their overall well-being
• Lastly, you can easily encourage employees to seek professional help if the need arises.

To get a crystal clear sense of the questions, check out some examples below.

Let’s dive in.

How do you steer the conversation once you’ve opened with the following question: “How are you feeling?”

Some of these questions can help you to screen your employees for distress.

We recommend you tweak some of these mental health survey questions to make them more relevant to your situation.

1. Have you ever experienced a situation that has impacted you immensely?
2. Do you feel affected by anxiety?
3. Do your tasks interfere with your hobbies?
4. Do you experience an ‘attack’ of fear, anxiety, or panic in the workplace?
5. Are you anxious around others?

These questions primarily probe potential signs of anxiety and depression.

So, you’re likely to get insights into the indicators of well-being, such as life satisfaction and happiness.

We recommend you incorporate open-ended questions to encourage conversations about mental health.

Some of the indicators of poor mental health well-being to check out for includes:

• Physical health
• Well-being
• Autonomy
• Choice and control
• Self-perception
• Hope and hopelessness
• Relationships and belonging

Let’s dive in.

Physical health

Create questions to probe the following indicators, such as restlessness, sleep, pain, agitation, etc.

Some of the questions you can use includes:

1. Tell me about your sleeping habits over the past 2 months.
   • Have you noticed changes in your sleeping patterns?
2. How would you describe your appetite over the past 1 week?
   • Have you changed your eating habits?

Wellbeing (and ill-being)

Here, create questions for probing feelings of anxiety, distress, motivation, and energy.

The absence of negative feelings correlates with a higher perceived quality of life.

Check out the examples below.

1. Tell me about the time over the past 3 months that you’ve experienced low feelings, stress, or sadness?
2. How frequently do you experience declined interest in the activities you usually enjoy?

Autonomy, choice, and control

Create questions that investigate the elements that contribute to a higher quality of life, such as pride, dignity, and privacy.

Check out the examples below.

1. How often in the past 3 months did you feel you have total control over your life, decisions, etc?
2. How often have you been bothered by unknown fears?

Self-perception

Create questions that probe your employees’ confidence and self-esteem.

For instance:

1. How confident have you been feeling in your capabilities in the past 3 months?
2. How often do you feel satisfied with yourself?

Hope and hopelessness

Create questions that investigate the elements associated with dreams, goals, and fears.

Check out the examples below.

1. How often in the past 3 months did you feel your future was bleak?
2. Tell me about your hopes, goals, and dreams?
3. What feelings do you have toward achieving these goals?

Relationships and belonging

Create questions that probe how employees perceive they ‘fit in’ with your team and the larger society.

Some examples include:

1. How ‘supported’ do you feel by others around you – your colleagues, friends, family, etc.
2. How do you feel about your relationships recently?

In the coming section, we’ll address the following question: how do you create a mental health survey visualization?

How Do You Create a Mental Health Survey Chart for Your Data Stories?

Microsoft Excel is one of the spreadsheet applications you can use to store, organize, and analyze data.

But it lacks visualizations designed purposely to visualize mental health survey question data, such as Likert Scale Chart.

We’re not advising you to do away with Excel. 

You can easily install an add-on in your Microsoft Excel to access survey-based visualizations, such as Likert Scale Chart.

The application is called ChartExpo.

What is ChartExpo?

ChartExpo is an add-in you can easily install in your Excel to access charts for visualizing mental health survey questions.

Features and Benefits

• ChartExpo is inexpensive compared to other applications. It only costs $10 per month to access many ready-made charts.
• You don’t need design or programming skills to generate ready-made charts for your stories.
• The survey-based application has a super-friendly dashboard to save you time.

Example

This section will use a Likert Chart to visualize the mental health survey responses below.

Questions	Scale	Responses
Do you get angry quickly on small actions which you don’t like?	1	223
Do you get angry quickly on small actions which you don’t like?	2	867
Do you get angry quickly on small actions which you don’t like?	3	659
Do you get angry quickly on small actions which you don’t like?	4	177
Do you get angry quickly on small actions which you don’t like?	5	276
Do you think you feel downhearted all the time?	1	752
Do you think you feel downhearted all the time?	2	168
Do you think you feel downhearted all the time?	3	830
Do you think you feel downhearted all the time?	4	794
Do you think you feel downhearted all the time?	5	477
Do you think you feel uncomfortable in large gathering?	1	116
Do you think you feel uncomfortable in large gathering?	2	122
Do you think you feel uncomfortable in large gathering?	3	363
Do you think you feel uncomfortable in large gathering?	4	136
Do you think you feel uncomfortable in large gathering?	5	622
Do you think you have a feeling of some guilt?	1	410
Do you think you have a feeling of some guilt?	2	290
Do you think you have a feeling of some guilt?	3	238
Do you think you have a feeling of some guilt?	4	694
Do you think you have a feeling of some guilt?	5	332

To get started with ChartExpo in Excel, follow the steps below:

• Open your Microsoft Excel.
• Open the worksheet and click the Insert button to access the My Apps option.

• Click the Insert button to initiate the ChartExpo engine.

• Click on Likert Scale Chart icon to get started.

• Highlight your data and click the Create Chart From Selection button, as shown.

• Check out the final chart.

Insights

In these mental health survey questions, you may notice that if someone disagrees it means their mental health is good but according to the chart it will be highlighted with red color and if they agree it means their mental health is not good but according to the chart it will be highlighted with green color.

• Overall view, 41% of respondents are feeling their mental health is bad and 35% think they have good mental health.
• 49% of respondents think they do not get angry at small actions which they don’t like and 21% of respondents think they get angry at small things which they dislike.
• 56% of respondents indicated that they feel uncomfortable around large gatherings and 18% think they feel comfortable around large gatherings.
• 36% of respondents indicated that think they don’t have feelings of some guilt and 52% think they have feelings of some guilt.

FAQs:

What is the purpose of a mental health survey?

Mental health surveys can help your business rejuvenate its workplace culture to attract and retain highly skilled employees.

Also, you can easily gain insights into factors that contribute to productivity, such as positive mental health. In others, you can easily learn the deep issues inhibiting your team from unlocking their full potential.

How is mental health measured?

American Psychologists Association (APA) recommends you adopt data-driven strategies, such as organizing mental health surveys.

The responses collected can be analyzed using charts and graphs, such as Likert Scale Chart.

Depending on your objective goal, mental health survey questions can be long or short.

These questions provide a standardized framework for measuring and tracking mental health data points.

Wrap Up

According to One Mind Institute, 25% of employees experience one mental health condition in their lifetime.

Mental health is a critical component of productivity.

Burnout due to changing working conditions takes a massive toll on your employees. And this calls for data collection to design a program for combating mental health problems.

So, how do you gather data to optimize your mental health program?

This is where survey-oriented charts, such as Likert Scale Chart, come in.

Likert Chart can help you to measure sentiments, attitudes, and opinions. And this is because the visualization goes beyond the simple “yes & no” survey questions.

Microsoft Excel lacks Likert Scale Charts for visualizing mental health survey data.

We’re not advising you to do away with the Excel spreadsheet.

We recommend you install third-party apps, such as ChartExpo, to access mental health survey graphs, such as Likert Scale Chart.