
Pulse Report 2021
The State of the Nation’s Mental Health
An in-depth view of how COVID-19 has affected the mental health of the United Kingdom


Straight from the source
One of the UK Government’s largest contributors to mental health data
As the UK’s leading digital mental health service provider, Kooth plc has been providing anonymised mental health insights to support the NHS and Local Authorities, Public Health England, policymakers, charities, and businesses since the first lockdown in March 2020.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, Kooth realised that it was in a unique position to provide extraordinary insights into the impact of the pandemic on the nation’s mental health. By unearthing the effects COVID-19 has posed on society, a clearer picture of the issues that will need to be addressed now, and in the years ahead, will emerge.
Seven key topics
Analysing the trends and stories within seven key areas:
- The Impact of the Pandemic on the Nation’s Mental Health
- Suicide and Self-Harm
- Eating Difficulties
- Black, Asian and Non-White Communities
- Families, Parenting and Homeschooling
- University Students
- Working Age Adults


Real stories, real outcomes
Our report blends data and insights with real-world case studies and expert opinions.
“We wanted to do more than just publish data and say that there is a pending problem. Hence, we took our data, added anonymous insights from service users, researched information from third-party reports and articles, and collaborated with experts in the field to garner their views – and with this insight the Kooth Pulse 2021: The State of the Nation’s Mental Health report was born.”
Sir Norman Lamb
Chair of the Kooth Advisory Board
Over one million logins
Using fully anonymous data to build our case for proven digital interventions
Kooth is an anonymous digital mental health platform that has access to self-declared demographic information such as age, ethnicity, geographic region, and gender but protects service user identity. The data for this report has been collected from over 192k active, anonymous Kooth service users in NHS Fiscal Year 2020 (FY2020). Service users range from 10 to 85 with those between 10 to 25 forming our children and young people population.

Mental health data releases in your inbox
Kooth has been researching and publishing mental health trends and data for the last 18 years. Sign up to our mailing list to get our releases first!
Mental health data releases in your inbox
Kooth has been researching and publishing mental health trends and data for the last 18 years. Sign up to our mailing list to get our releases first!