Risk Factors of Anxiety: Household Composition
14% of respondents to MHRC’s national survey reported experiencing moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety.
We turn to Canadians with lived experience to explore risk factors of anxiety, with a focus on the informal caregiving burden.
Researchers are only beginning to understand the impact of the informal caregiving burden on mental health throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond. Emerging Canadian studies point to increased vulnerability to anxiety and depression for families with additional eldercare and childcare obligations. This research brief uses MHRC's comprehensive dataset to explore factors contributing to symptoms of anxiety (as measured on the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) clinical screener), with a focus on the informal caregiving burden, and special consideration of demographic characteristics.
Key findings:
Our analyses revealed that household composition significantly influences symptoms of anxiety.
Canadians responsible for greater caretaking burden at home, in particular, women, are at much higher risk of reporting symptoms of anxiety.
For men, household composition was not found to be a significant risk factor for symptoms of anxiety. However, findings suggest that another household-related variable, annual income, may be impacting mental health of men.
ABOUT THE REPORT
The report presents data from MHRC's partnership with Pollara Strategic Insights during our national mental health polling initiative. The information in this report was collected from August 2021 to May 2023, encompassing Poll 8 to 16 of our national population study. This data represents 15,071 respondents (18 years or older) who answers questions about their mental health in an online survey.
