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Primary carer health and wellbeingEmotional wellbeingPrimary carers’ moods, feelings and emotional reactionshave a big impact on children. In waves 2 and 3, primarycarers were asked whether, in the past 12 months, theyhad been ’sad (blue) or depressed for more than twoweeks’. In wave 3, if they answered yes to this question,they were also asked if they were getting any help for it.In wave 3,275 (19.6 per cent) primary carers answeredthat they had experienced depression for a periodof more than two weeks. Of these, 61.8 per cent weregetting help, 33.1 per cent said they were not receivinghelp and 3.6 per cent said that no help was available.People indicated that they had received help from awide variety of sources. Of those who had been gettinghelp, 56.5 per cent had sought professional assistancefrom doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors orsocial workers and 22.4 per cent were on medication.Many people (22.4 per cent) relied on family and friendsfor help. Of the people who said they had experienceddepression, 18.8 per cent also answered that they hadclinical depression or anxiety when asked about healthconditions which made it difficult to look after the child.It is possible to look at the persistence of depression bycomparing wave 2 and 3 answers. Of the 1,065 peoplewho responded to this question in both waves, 9.2 per centsaid they had been depressed for more than two weeksover the previous 12 months in both waves, 25.7 per centhad been depressed in one of the two waves and 65.1per cent had not been depressed in either wave.Table 35: Emotional wellbeing of primary carers, per centEmotion Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3Get angry or wildreal quick?Felt everything ishard work?Felt so worried yourstomach got upset?Stopped liking thingsthat used to be fun?Do silly things withoutthinking that you feelshame about thenext day?20.8 16.1 13.219.0 19.9 15.016.4 13.2 14.215.6 10.0 9.66.3 4.1 3.5Primary carers were asked in each wave a numberof other questions about their emotional wellbeing inthe previous three months. Response options included‘never’, ‘sometimes’, ‘fair bit’ and ‘lots’. These questionswere drawn from the Strong Souls questionnairedeveloped to assess the emotional wellbeing ofparticipants in the Aboriginal Birth Cohort study(Thomas et al., 2010). They provide a general indication ofthe possibility of depression, anxiety and impulsivity, whichcan be an indicator for suicide risk. Table 35 compares thepercentage of people who answered ‘fair bit’ and ‘lots’to these questions across the three waves.With the exception of ‘felt so sad nothing could cheeryou up’, the proportions of people responding ‘fair bit’ or‘lots’ to the questions have decreased between waves 1and 3. Restricting the sample to the same primary carerswho participated in all three waves did not change theproportions substantially, indicating that people whohave experienced greater mental health problemswere not necessarily more likely to drop out of the study.However, without further investigation by researchersknowledgeable about mental health, it is not possible tosay whether the respondents’ mental health has in factimproved over the three year period.General healthThe vast majority (88.6 per cent) of primary carers ratedtheir general health as being ‘good’, ‘very good’ or‘excellent’. When asked if they had experienced anyhealth problems in the previous 12 months which hadmade it difficult to look after the study child, 65.6 per centof primary carers answered no.Of the 34.4 per cent who answered that they hadexperienced such a health problem, the most commonlycited problems (apart from ‘other’ at 27.3 per cent)were pregnancy and miscarriage (19.6 per cent),flu (14.2 per cent) and clinical depression or anxiety(11.1 per cent).The percentage who said they had experienced clinicaldepression or anxiety equates to 3.8 per cent of the totalFootprints in Time sample indicating that even thoughnearly 20 per cent of people had experienced depressionin the previous 12 months (see previous section), thelength or severity of the depression had not preventedthem from taking care of the child. However, this alsoraises questions about the extent to which depressiongoes undiagnosed due to lack of awareness or accessto services. This topic deserves further investigation byresearchers experienced in health matters.Felt so worried it is hardto breathe?Felt so sad nothingcould cheer you up?5.9 6.4 4.95.8 6.2 6.3Note:The table reports the percentages of primary carers whoresponded ’fair bit’ and ‘lots’ to the questions above.48 Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children | Key Summary Report from Wave 3
SmokingIt is now accepted that smoking is detrimental to people’shealth whether they smoke directly or smoke passivelyby being around people who smoke. Protecting thehealth of people who decide not to smoke by ensuringthey are not exposed to other people’s smoke has beenthe impetus for the introduction of laws in recent years.Consequently, smoking is no longer permitted in publicenclosed buildings and vehicles. The recent introductionof a ban on smoking in private cars with children in themacknowledges that children need to be protected frompassive smoking even in private situations. 15Using the three waves of Footprints in Time, we canexamine the changes in the smoking habits of primarycarers. There are 1,169 cases where the same primarycarer has participated in all three waves. Of these, thereis missing data (non-response or refusal to answer) forone or two waves for 28 respondents. Primary carers wereincluded as current smokers in this analysis if they reportedthat they smoked or were casual or social smokers. Ofthose primary carers who participated in all three waves,43.7 per cent smoked in every wave and 37.1 per centdid not smoke in any of the waves. Of those who did notsmoke every year, 7.5 per cent commenced smokingduring the period and 5.8 per cent quit smoking. A further3.8 per cent temporarily commenced or quit smoking. Ofthose who did quit in waves 2 and 3, the most commonmethod was to go ‘cold turkey’ (in other words, just stop).Smoking habits varied by relative isolation. Of all primarycarer respondents in wave 3, those living in areas of noisolation were the least likely to smoke (49.5 per cent)while those living in areas of low or moderate isolationwere the most likely to smoke (58.2 to 60.1 per cent). Thosein areas of high or extreme isolation had a smoking rate of54.3 per cent. In general, for the whole sample, the ratesof smoking across the three waves were relatively stablewith the exception of people in the highly or extremelyisolated areas. This was possibly due to the small numberof respondents in this category.Living as a familyRelationships in the familyFor the first time in wave 3, primary carers of the studychildren were asked about aspects of their relationshipswith their partners (if applicable).Most respondents enjoyed a warm and supportiverelationship with their partners, with more thanthree-quarters of respondents saying that they and theirpartner often or always showed signs of affection for eachother, and nearly 80 per cent of primary carers sayingthey felt that their partner supported them as a parent(Table 36). More than half the respondents said that theynever or rarely disagreed with their partner about bringingup the study child (57.7 per cent), and 49.8 per cent ofrespondents rarely argue with their partner.Table 36: Relationship between primary carer and their current partner, per centRelationship between primary carer and current partnerFrequencyShow signs thatthey care foreach otherPartner supportsprimary carer asa parentDisagree aboutbringing upstudy childHave argumentsArgumentsinclude physicalviolenceNever 1.7 1.6 26.9 14.4 86.2Rarely 3.0 3.0 30.8 35.4 10.3Sometimes 19.7 16.6 31.2 43.2 3.3Often 25.4 23.9 5.5 5.2 0.3Always 50.3 55.0 5.6 1.8 --Number ofrespondents768 767 769 769 76915 Laws to ban smoking in cars carrying children are operating in all Australian jurisdictions except the Northern Territory.Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children | Key Summary Report from Wave 349
Page 2 and 3: The Footprints in Time team acknowl
Page 5 and 6: ContentsForeword 6Introduction 7Imp
Page 7 and 8: Culture and community 53Neighbourho
Page 9 and 10: IntroductionFootprints in Time is t
Page 11 and 12: AANNUAL UPDATEIt’s a child’s li
Page 13 and 14: Table 2: Type of school attended by
Page 15 and 16: Figure 4: Average “Who Am I?” s
Page 17: Table 5: Persistence of concerns ab
Page 22: Dental healthAs they are growing up
Page 26 and 27: Table10: Percentage of children doi
Page 28 and 29: Table 12: Percentage of children do
Page 30 and 31: Table 14: Changes in family type of
Page 32 and 33: Parents living elsewhereGeneral que
Page 34 and 35: Primary carers of children who did
Page 36 and 37: Figure 14: Most common reasons for
Page 38 and 39: HomelessnessOn any given day, nearl
Page 40 and 41: For 77.0 per cent of respondents th
Page 42 and 43: Jobless and two-earner familiesIf w
Page 44 and 45: Income and financeThe Footprints in
Page 46 and 47: Income managementIn all three waves
Page 48 and 49: Table 33: Family money situation in
Page 52 and 53: Parental warmth and disciplineIn wa
Page 54 and 55: Questions about a list of major lif
Page 56 and 57: Table 40 shows the relative distrib
Page 58 and 59: in areas of low or moderate isolati
Page 60 and 61: It is also important to consider th
Page 62 and 63: The degree of trust respondents had
Page 64 and 65: Parent and child directed activitie
Page 66 and 67: Table 52: Level of television viewi
Page 68 and 69: With the exception of storytelling,
Page 70 and 71: Children in areas of high or extrem
Page 72 and 73: Nevertheless, cards was the form of
Page 74 and 75: Social and emotional development:In
Page 76 and 77: The prosocial scores were significa
Page 78 and 79: In wave 3, teacher-based SDQ scores
Page 80 and 81: English language acquisition: relat
Page 82 and 83: Using the MacArthur Bates vocabular
Page 84 and 85: Mothers’ educational aspirations
Page 86 and 87: curriculum, stable schooling (only
Page 89 and 90: Appendix ABackground to the studyCo
Page 91 and 92: Other participant interviewsIn addi
Page 93 and 94: Table 71: Percentage of wave 1 resp
Page 95 and 96: Access to the dataThe dataset used
Page 97 and 98: ReferencesAustralian Bureau of Stat
Page 100:
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