A look at the moods and mental health of older Canadians

It’s the day after “Blue Monday”—the third Monday in January—often considered the “saddest” day of the year due to factors such as winter weather, short days and the time removed from the holiday season.

It’s a time of year that can affect one’s mood, perhaps especially so for the estimated 4.7 million Canadians aged 15 years and older in 2022 that reported having a lifetime diagnosis of a mood disorder.

A StatCan study released last month, entitled “Mood disorders among older Canadians,” is among relatively few studies that have examined the prevalence of and factors associated with mood disorders in people aged 65 years and older.

Let’s have a look at the key takeaways, along with other data related to mental health, loneliness and a sense of belonging, among Canadians aged 65 years and older.

The study, based on data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), found that from 2015 to 2023, on average, about 1 in 14 older Canadians (7.0%) reported having a diagnosis of a mood disorder.

Overall, females (8.3%) were more likely than males (5.5%) to report having a diagnosis. The gap was similar between Indigenous people (10.4%) and non-Indigenous, non-racialized people.  (7.2%).

The study also found that people who lived alone (8.4%) were slightly more likely to report a mood disorder than those living with family or others (6.4%). There was also a small gap between those living in households with the lowest (8.8%) and highest (5.3%) income deciles. (An income decile refers to a group that contains 10% of the population when sorted by income, from lowest to highest.)

There were wider gaps in reporting mood disorders between people living with (9.0%) and without (4.9%) multimorbidity (having two or more chronic conditions) and between those who perceived life to be stressful (8.5%) and not stressful (2.5%).

As other StatCan survey data indicate, mental health and loneliness continue to be factors in many seniors’ lives.

The CCHS most recently asked Canadians about their perceived mental health in 2023/2024, when over three in five Canadians aged 65 years and over (62.5%) reported it being either very good or excellent. This was the highest rate among all age groups. In comparison, this rate was over half (53.7%) for Canadians aged 18 years and over.

Fewer than 1 in 10 people aged 65 years and older (8.1%) perceived their mental health to be fair or poor—the lowest rate among all age groups—compared with 15.1% of Canadians aged 18 years and over.

It can be extra challenging to feel connected during the winter months, though most seniors report feeling connected to support and community.

Just under 1 in 10 Canadians aged 65 years and over (9.2%) reported to the Canadian Social Survey (CSS) that they felt lonely either always or often in the fourth quarter of 2024. This was a slight improvement from the same quarter of 2022 (11.5%).

Over the same period, the rate of seniors who said they sometimes felt lonely increased slightly (from 30.5% to 34.3%), while the rate of those who rarely or never felt lonely edged down (from 58.0% to 56.5%).

The CSS also found that more than three in four seniors (77.6%) in the fourth quarter of 2024 always or often had someone to count on when needed, while others said it was sometimes (16.3%) or rarely or never (6.1%). These rates were largely unchanged from a year earlier.

Other CSS data show that over two-thirds (67.2%) of seniors reported having a strong sense of belonging to their community from 2021 to 2024, the highest rate among all age groups.