Re:Poll: Have you experienced depressive symptoms over the p...
by ineedasername on Sunday November 15, 2020 @10:41AM
(#25101990)
how we have got to the situation where 2/3rd of the people answering the poll claim to be clinically depressed.
Well, they might not be claiming clinical depression, which technically would require a clinician to render a diagnosis. Though many people may also not understand that distinction.
As for the large number, it may simply be that people who see the title of the post & aren't depressed just say to themselves in a slit second "nope not relevant to me, not clicking on it". In that case, most of the people who answered "yes" to depression were self-selecting as people for whom it was already relevant, i.e., people experiencing what they consider depression.
It's a problem with surveys in general. I hate doing surveys, but a huge portion of my job is data analysis, and most people are bad at creating surveys especially the design of individual questions. But the initial problem is "How do I get a representative sample when people that choose to do the survey may not be the same as people that won't". There's ways to minimize that effect, none of them great-- look at the the presidential polls as an example.
Well, they might not be claiming clinical depression, which technically would require a clinician to render a diagnosis. Though many people may also not understand that distinction.
As for the large number, it may simply be that people who see the title of the post & aren't depressed just say to themselves in a slit second "nope not relevant to me, not clicking on it". In that case, most of the people who answered "yes" to depression were self-selecting as people for whom it was already relevant, i.e., people experiencing what they consider depression.
It's a problem with surveys in general. I hate doing surveys, but a huge portion of my job is data analysis, and most people are bad at creating surveys especially the design of individual questions. But the initial problem is "How do I get a representative sample when people that choose to do the survey may not be the same as people that won't". There's ways to minimize that effect, none of them great-- look at the the presidential polls as an example.