Only 1.8% turn to professional counselling under severe stress

The full distribution for “If you experience severe emotional stress, what is your immediate coping mechanism?” (n = 399) is: Isolating myself and internalizing the problem — 41.9% (167); Sharing my feelings with real-life friends or family — 34.1% (136); Escaping into social media scrolling or binge-watching — 22.3% (89); Seeking professional psychological counseling — 1.8% (7).

The cohort is closely divided on this question. With only 7.8 percentage points between the top two answers, no single response can be treated as the cohort's position. The smallest recorded answer, seeking professional psychological counseling, still represents 7 people — a group large enough to matter in programme design even at 1.8%.

The sample is a community-recruited cohort of 399 respondents surveyed between 21 May and 28 June 2026. Figures describe this cohort; they are not state-level prevalence estimates and should not be reported as such.

The composition of the sample also shapes the totals: 74.4% of respondents fall in the older student and early-career band, and 72.7% identify as male. Any reading by gender, district or occupation needs disaggregated fieldwork this instrument was not designed to deliver.

The instrument records one moment in time, so nothing here identifies a cause or a trend. Statements about mechanism in this brief are interpretive and flagged as such.