Association Between Mental Illness and Trajectories of Social Participation Over Time in Community-Dwelling Middle-Aged and Older Couples: A Retrospective Longitudinal Study.

Our study examined the association between social participation and mental illness in middle-aged and older couples, adopting a longitudinal, quantitative approach in a large sample. We analyzed the data of 3,504 middle-aged and older adults. Social participation was used as the dependent variable, and the time-varying variable was whether there was mental illness in the couple. Latent growth modeling was used to examine the association between these variables. Among the participants, 214 (6.11%) were middle-aged and older couples with at least one partner having a mental illness. An association was found between social participation and presence of a mental illness, except in the data for 2018 (estimate range =  -0.078 to - 0.032; p-value range = <.0001 to 0.035). Our findings highlight the imperative of addressing the unique needs of middle-aged and older couples with mental illness. Therefore, the findings suggest the need for interventions that can be integrated to encourage couples to participate in meaningful social activities together.