Canadians mental health improving, still below pre-pandemic levels: study

WINNIPEG -

Canadians mental health is slowly getting better but it is still far below the average that was set before the pandemic according to the most recent mental health index from LifeWorks.

Since April 2020, LifeWorks has been providing a monthly update on Canadians mental health throughout the pandemic.

For August 2021, the company found the overall mental health index is at -9.7. This score is up from the -10.1 set in July, but LifeWorks said this is still almost 10 points below the pre-pandemic level.

The good news about the number is this is the highest mark since the index started being tracked.

Breaking down the index per province, it shows that Manitobans mental health has declined compared to last month.

In July, the index had Manitoba at a -9.7 but that has dipped in August to -10.6. Alberta currently has the worst mark sitting at -12.5 while Newfoundland and Labrador lead the country at -5.0.

WORKING WHILE PHYSICALLY OR MENTALLY UNWELL

For the month of August, LifeWorks also look at productivity loss at work while Canadians were feeling unwell, whether that be physically or mentally.

The results found that 54 per cent of Canadians report feeling unwell at least one day per week and their mental health scores are much lower than those who don't report feeling unwell while at work.

LifeWorks also found that those with a mental health score of -40 or lower have an estimated productivity loss of 27 per cent.

When looking at employees who are parents compared to those who don't have children, it found 64 per cent of parents reported feeling unwell at least one day a week compared to only 36 per cent of people without children.

WHERE CANADIANS WORK IMPACTS MENTAL HEALTH

LifeWorks research also found that 65 per cent of Canadians consider the organization they work for a great place to work.

Those who enjoy where they work have a higher mental health score, -3.1 on the mental health index, compared to those who don't enjoy their workplace.

For those who don't like where they are working, around 15 per cent, LifeWorks said their mental health scores are lower than the national average by more than double the amount.

The research also found that people who are managers are more likely to like their organization compared to non-manager employees.

LifeWorks collects the data through an online survey of 3,000 Canadians who are employed or were employed in the last six months. The same 3,000 people are used each month so there is no sampling bias.

The mental health scores are created by assigning a point value to every question and the higher the number, the better mental health results for each person.

All the numbers are added together and then divided by a total number of possible points to get a score out of 100. LifeWorks said the raw score is the mathematical mean of the individual scores.