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. 2021 Oct;112(5):927-937.
doi: 10.17269/s41997-021-00524-5. Epub 2021 Jun 10.

Social participation and depressive symptoms of carer-employees of older adults in Canada: a cross-sectional analysis of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

Li Wang  1 , Chris Ji  2 , Peter Kitchen  3 , Allison Williams  4
Affiliations

Social participation and depressive symptoms of carer-employees of older adults in Canada: a cross-sectional analysis of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

Li Wang et al. Can J Public Health. 2021 Oct.

Erratum in

Abstract
in English, French

Objectives: This study used two waves of data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) to investigate the association between social participation and depressive symptoms in carer-employees (CEs) and non-carer-employees (NCEs).

Methods: Adopting Pearlin et al.'s stress model, multivariate linear regression was used to examine the relationships among carer role, social participation, and depressive symptoms in Canadian employees using the first two waves of CLSA data, while controlling for possible confounders.

Results: Higher levels of social participation were found to be associated with lower depressive symptoms in both waves. Social participation was found to moderate depressive symptoms for CEs when compared with NCEs in Wave 2 but not in Wave 1.

Conclusion: The present study highlights the importance of social participation in reducing CEs' depressive symptoms. The findings provide support for innovative policy and intervention efforts to encourage and enhance social participation at work via carer-friendly workplace policies for CEs across Canada.

RéSUMé: OBJECTIFS: Cette étude a utilisé deux vagues de données de l’Étude longitudinale canadienne sur le vieillissement (ÉLCV) pour étudier l’association entre la participation sociale et les symptômes dépressifs chez les employés soignants (ES) et les employés non soignants (ENS). MéTHODES: Adoptant le concept du modèle de stress de Pearlin et al., une régression linéaire multivariée a été utilisée pour examiner les relations entre le rôle de l’aidant, la participation sociale et les symptômes dépressifs chez les employés canadiens en utilisant les deux premières vagues de données de l’ÉLCV, tout en contrôlant leurs facteurs de confusion. RéSULTATS: Des niveaux plus élevés de participation sociale se sont avérés être associés à des symptômes dépressifs plus faibles de façon constante dans les deux vagues. Au fil du temps, la participation s’est avérée modérer les symptômes dépressifs pour les ES par rapport aux ENS dans la vague 2 mais pas dans la vague 1. CONCLUSION: La présente étude souligne l’importance de la participation sociale en ce qui concerne l’atténuation des symptômes dépressifs des ES. Les résultats appuient les efforts politiques et d’intervention visant à encourager et à améliorer la participation sociale au travail des ES partout au Canada.

Keywords: CLSA; Carer-employees; Depressive symptoms; Social participation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

References

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