Philippines among most stressed, emotional countries — Gallup report

MANILA, Philippines — Filipinos were among the most stressed and most emotional populations in the world last year, according to a global well-being index.

Gallup’s annual Global Emotions report, which was released Thursday, found that the Philippines placed second in the list of most stressed countries, with 58% saying they had experienced a lot of stress a day before the poll was conducted in 2018.

This was well above the global average of 35%.

Greeks were the most stressed population for the third consecutive year, with 59% reporting they experienced stress a day before the survey. Tanzania placed third with stress rate of 57%.

Iran, Sri Lanka, United States of America had a stress rate of 55%. They were followed by Uganda (53%), Costa Rica, Rwanda, Turkey and Venezuela (52%).

Most emotional country

The Philippines, along with three other countries, also topped the list of most emotional nations last year, according to the same report.

This, after six in 10 Filipinos said they had experienced positive or negative emotions a day before the poll was conducted.

The Philippines, along with Niger, Ecuador and Liberia, had 60% average “yes” responses to all questions.

They were followed by Costa Rica, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Peru (59%), and Nicaragua, Honduras, Sri Lanka, Guatemala (58%).

Last year, the Philippines was the most emotional country in Asia and the fourth in the world with 58% average “yes” responses to all questions.

The report also found that more than one in three people said they experienced a lot of worry (39%) and at least one in five experienced sadness (24%) or anger (22%).

Chad was the most negative country in the world with a score of 54, followed by regional neighbors Niger and Sierra Leone.

Latin American countries such as Paraguay and Panama (85), Guatemala and Mexico (84) and El Salvador (83) dominated the list of countries with positive experiences.

Survey results were based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults conducted throughout 2018 in 143 countries for the Positive Experience Index and 142 countries for the Negative Experience Index. The margin of sampling error ranged from ±2.1 to ±5.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.  — infographic by Jonathan Asuncion