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

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.