Child and caregiver mental health during 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia: findings from national repeated cross-sectional surveys
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Abstract
There are calls for research into the mental health consequences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. Australia’s initial, effective suppression of COVID-19 offers insights into these indirect impacts in the relative absence of the disease. We aimed to describe the mental health experiences of Australian caregivers and children over 12 months, reporting differences related to demographic, socioeconomic and lockdown characteristics.
Methods
Data were from Australia’s only nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional survey of caregivers with children (0–17 years). N=2020 caregivers participated in June 2020, N=1434 in September 2020 and N=2508 in July 2021. Caregivers reported their mental health (poor vs not, Kessler-6), and perceived impacts of the pandemic on theirs and their children’s mental health (negative vs none/positive). Data were weighted to approximate population distributions of caregiver age, gender, sole caregiving, number and ages of children, state/territory and neighbourhood-level disadvantage.
Results
Perceived impacts on mental health were more frequently negative for female (vs male) caregivers and older (vs younger) children. Poor caregiver mental health (Kessler-6) was more common for families experiencing socioeconomic adversity (especially financial), while perceived impacts were more frequently negative for more socially advantaged groups. Caregivers who experienced the least total lockdown reported similar mental health over time. Otherwise, poor mental health and perceived negative impacts increased over time with increasing total length of lockdown.
Conclusion
Despite Australia’s low infection rates, the negative mental health experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic are real and concerning. Addressing poor mental health must be central to ongoing pandemic recovery efforts for families and children.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.26.21262708: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Field Sample Permit: Data collection is contracted to the Online Research Unit who draw a nationally representative sample of caregivers from their panel, comprising adults aged 18 years or older, who live in Australia and have internet access.
IRB: The RCH Human Research Ethics Committee approved this research (February 2020, #35254).Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An …SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.26.21262708: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Field Sample Permit: Data collection is contracted to the Online Research Unit who draw a nationally representative sample of caregivers from their panel, comprising adults aged 18 years or older, who live in Australia and have internet access.
IRB: The RCH Human Research Ethics Committee approved this research (February 2020, #35254).Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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