According to the INE publication “Health Statistics,” released within the scope of World Health Day, 11.3% of the population in question showed more severe levels of anxiety.
Generalised anxiety affects women more (46.2%) than men (31.2%). In the most severe cases, the difference remains, with 14.6% in women and 7.2% in men.
The data, based on the Survey on Living Conditions and Income (ICOR), also indicate that the older population presents higher levels of anxiety compared to younger people, with differences of three percentage points in the overall indicator and 3.5 percentage points in the most severe cases.
Increasing numbers
Compared to 2024, the prevalence of these symptoms increased by 7.4 percentage points (p.p.) in the total population in question, particularly among women under 65, according to the INE (National Institute of Statistics).
Education and professional status
By level of education, people with higher education (33.9%) or secondary education (35.9%) registered lower levels of anxiety than those with no education (49.6%) or who had only completed basic education (43.7%).
Regarding professional status, the unemployed are the most affected, with 50.2% presenting symptoms of generalised anxiety.
Among the employed population, the proportion is 36.6%; among the economically inactive population, it ranges from 41% among retirees to 46.2% among other inactive individuals.
Life satisfaction
Despite the worsening of mental health indicators, life satisfaction remained stable. In 2025, the population assigned an average of 7.3 on a scale of 0 to 10, the same value as the previous year.
The ICOR results also reveal that 52.7% of the population aged 16 or older rated their health status as good or very good, a lower value than in 2024 (53.6%) but still higher than the average for the first years of this decade (49.5% – 51% between 2021 and 2023).
Access to health
On the other hand, the proportion of people who negatively assessed their health status (12.1%) in 2025 remained close to that recorded in the previous year (12%), staying below the levels seen from 2021 to 2023 (between 13.1% and 13.5%) and substantially lower than those obtained in the previous decade (between 18% in 2004 and 21% in 2014), according to the INE (National Institute of Statistics).
In 2025, a positive assessment of health status was more frequent among men (56.5%) than among women (49.3%), and was substantially higher in the population aged 16 to 64 (66.0%) than in the population aged 65 or over (19.1%).
Rating health status
Similar to previous years, the percentage of people who rated their health status as good or very good in 2025 was significantly higher for those with higher levels of education: 68.4% had completed secondary or post-secondary education, and 76% had completed higher education, compared to 34.9% of those with basic education and 10.8% who had not completed any level of education.
The employed population reported the most positive assessment of their health status (67.3%), while in the unemployed population, this assessment was 49.7%.