MANILA, Philippines — A large majority of Filipinos continue to experience significant stress during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, according to the results of a Social Weather Stations survey released Saturday.
Based on a mobile phone survey conducted between July 3 to 6, the COVID-19 crisis brought "great stress" to 51% of Filipino adults and "much stress" to another 35%.
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The remaining 14% felt either little or no stress.
Compared to its May 2020 survey on the same topic, those with great stress fell slightly from 55% to 51% while those who experienced much stress remained at relatively the same figure.
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A total of 62% who came from families that experienced involuntary hunger in the past three months were among the respondents who answered feeling great stress.
The SWS said that involuntary hunger reported by respondents was at a new high of 20.9% of families (estimated 5.2 million) in July 2020, up from the 16.7% figure in the previous May survey and the highest since the 22% (estimated 4.77 million families) recorded in September 2014.
Stress was also found higher among the newly-unemployed and employees, those who live in Metro Manila and the Visayas, as well as junior high school graduates.
A total of 1,555 adult Filipinos participated nationwide in the SWS survey through mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing, including 306 in Metro Manila, 451 in the rest of Luzon, 388 in the Visayas and 410 in Mindanao.
Sampling error margins were reported at ±2% for national percentages, ±6% for Metro Manila, ±5 for Balance Luzon, ±5% for the Visayas, and ±5% for Mindanao.