Data Resource Profile: The South Australian Well-being and Engagement Collection (WEC)

Mental health profiles and academic achievement in Australian school students

This study explored mental health profiles in Australian school students using indicators of well-being (i.e., optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness) and psychological distress (i.e., sadness and worries). The sample included 75,757 students (ages 8-18 years) who completed the 2019 South Australian Wellbeing and Engagement Collection. Latent profile analysis identified five mental health profiles consisting of (a) complete mental health (23%), (b) good mental health (33%), (c) moderate mental health (27%), (d) symptomatic but content (9%), and (e) troubled (8%). Findings provide partial support for the dual-factor model of mental health. Distal outcomes analysis on a sub-set of students (n = 24,466) found students with a symptomatic but content, moderate mental health, or troubled profile had poorer academic achievement than students with complete mental health. Implications for schools and education systems are discussed, including the need to pair clinical supports for students with psychological distress with population-level preventative health approaches to build psychological well-being.

Trends in Well-Being Among Youth in Australia, 2017-2022

Importance

Little is known about temporal trends in children's well-being and how the COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced the well-being of young Australians. Certain demographic groups may be more vulnerable to experiencing declines in well-being.

Objective

To examine well-being trends over 6 consecutive years among South Australian students and explore the influence of sociodemographic characteristics.

Design, Setting, and Participants

Longitudinal analyses of annual (2017 to 2022) cross-sectional data of students in grades 4 through 9 (n = 40 392 to 56 897 per year) attending South Australian government schools from the Well-being and Engagement Collection (WEC) census.

Exposures

Calendar year (2017-2022) and sociodemographic characteristics (sex, school grade, parental education, language spoken at home, residential region) from school enrollment records.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Students self-reported life satisfaction, optimism, happiness, cognitive engagement, emotional regulation, perseverance, worry, and sadness.

Results

Over 6 years (2017 to 2022), a total of 119 033 students (mean [SD] age, 12.1 y; 51.4% male) participated in this study. Most well-being measures declined over time, with consistent worsening of well-being from 2020 onward. For example, compared with 2017, sadness was 0.26 (95% CI, 0.25-0.27) points higher in 2020 (standardized mean difference [SMD], 0.27) and remained elevated by more than 0.26 points (SMD, 0.27) in 2021 and 2022. At almost every time point, greatest well-being was reported by students of male sex (except cognitive engagement and perseverance), in earlier school grades, with highest parental education, speaking a language other than English at home, and residing in outer regional and remote settings (for satisfaction, optimism, and emotional regulation). Sociodemographic differences in well-being were generally consistent over time; however, sex differences widened from 2020 for all indicators except cognitive engagement and perseverance. For example, between 2017 and 2022, sadness increased by 0.27 (95% CI, 0.25-0.29) more points among females than males (SMD, 0.28).

Conclusions and Relevance

In this longitudinal analysis of annual census data, there were downward trends in students' well-being, especially since 2020. The largest sociodemographic disparities were observed for students of female sex, those in later school grades, and those with lowest parental education. Urgent and equitable support for the well-being of all young people, particularly those facing disparity, is imperative.

The relationships between school children's wellbeing, socio-economic disadvantage and after-school activities: a cross-sectional study

Background

Lower socioeconomic status is associated with poorer wellbeing among children. Identifying how children participate in after-school activities and how after-school activities are associated with wellbeing may inform interventions to improve wellbeing among children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This study explored whether children’s after-school activities varied by socioeconomic status and examined the associations between after-school activities and wellbeing in low socioeconomic status children.

Methods

This study analysed cross-sectional data from 61,759 school students in years 4 to 9 who completed the 2018 South Australian Wellbeing and Engagement Collection. Students reported the number of days per week they participated in 12 activities (after-school care, homework, music lessons or practice, youth organisations, sports, television, videogames, social media, reading, chores, arts and crafts, and socialising with friends) during the after-school period (3-6 pm) and their wellbeing (happiness, sadness, worry, engagement, perseverance, optimism, emotion regulation, and life satisfaction). Socioeconomic status was measured by parents' highest education level obtained from school enrolment data. Linear multilevel models were used to examine whether frequency of after-school activities varied by socioeconomic status. Multilevel ordered logit models were used to analyse the association between after-school activities and wellbeing amongst participants in the low socioeconomic status category.

Results

After-school activities differed according to socioeconomic status; high socioeconomic status children did more frequent sport, homework, and reading and low socioeconomic status children did more frequent screen-based activities (TV, videogames and social media). Among children from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, higher wellbeing was associated most consistently with more frequent sports participation, homework, reading and spending time with friends and less frequent videogames, social media and after-school care.

Conclusions

Children's wellbeing is positively associated with socioeconomic status. Amongst children from disadvantaged backgrounds, participating in sport, spending time with friends and getting less screen time may be protective for wellbeing. The results suggest that programming targeted at increasing sports participation and reducing screen time amongst children from low socioeconomic status backgrounds may support their wellbeing.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12887-022-03322-1.

Prevalence of breakfast skipping among children and adolescents: a cross-sectional population level study

Background

Interventions to promote breakfast consumption are a popular strategy to address early life inequalities. It is important to understand the epidemiology of children and adolescents who skip breakfast so that interventions and policy can be appropriately considered. This study investigated the prevalence of breakfast skipping among a contemporary, population-wide sample of children and adolescents in Australia.

Methods

Participants were grade 4–12 students (n = 71,390, 8–18 years) in South Australian government (public) schools who took part in the 2019 Wellbeing and Engagement Collection. The prevalence of breakfast skipping (never, sometimes, often, or always) was calculated for the overall sample and stratified by gender, school grade, socioeconomic status and geographical remoteness. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine the relative risk ratio of sometimes, often, and always skippers compared with never skippers, according to demographic characteristics.

Results

Overall, 55.0% of students reported never skipping breakfast, 17.4% reported sometimes skipping, 18.0% reported often skipping, and 9.5% reported always skipping breakfast. Skipping breakfast was more prevalent among females, students in senior grades, and those living in socioeconomically disadvantaged and regional and remote areas. Analyses disaggregated by gender revealed that grade level gradients in breakfast skipping were more marked among females compared to males.

Conclusions

Breakfast skipping among children and adolescents appears considerably more prevalent than previous research suggests. Drivers of breakfast skipping across population sub-groups need to be explored to better inform strategies to promote breakfast consumption.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12887-022-03284-4.

Prevalence of electronic device use before bed among Australian children and adolescents: a cross-sectional population level study

OBJECTIVE

To understand the prevalence of children and adolescents' electronic device use (EDU) in the hour before bed and identify sociodemographic groups that are at increased risk of problematic use.

METHOD

A contemporary population wide sample of South Australian school students aged 8-18 years (n = 70,936) was utilised to present descriptive statistics of EDU before bed across sociodemographic groups. Data was collected from the 2019 Wellbeing and Engagement Collection, an annual self-report census of students' health, wellbeing and school engagement.

RESULTS

90% of children used an electronic device in the hour before bed at least one night a week, with 51% using a device every night. Older adolescent females in grades 10-12 were most frequent users and children from the most socioeconomically disadvantaged communities were also more likely to use electronic devices in the hour before bed.

CONCLUSION

EDU before bed is highly prevalent among Australian children and adolescents and given the negative health and educational impacts, it requires immediate and widespread action from policy makers to ensure the health of Australia's next generation. Implications for public health: The scale of the problem has now been identified; next steps rely on a public health approach to address this issue. This might include awareness raising campaigns and targeted interventions towards at-risk groups.

Breakfast skipping and cognitive and emotional engagement at school: a cross-sectional population-level study

OBJECTIVE

Research on the consequences of breakfast skipping among students tends to focus on academic outcomes, rather than student well-being or engagement at school. This study investigated the association between breakfast skipping and cognitive and emotional aspects of school engagement.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study using data from a population-level survey of children and adolescents' well-being and engagement at school. Linear regression with adjustment for confounders was used to estimate the effect of breakfast skipping on school engagement.

SETTING

Government schools (i.e. public schools) in South Australia.

PARTICIPANTS

The participants were students, Grades 4-12, who completed the Wellbeing and Engagement Collection in 2019. The analysis sample included 61 825 students.

RESULTS

Approximately 9·6 % of students reported always skipping breakfast, with 35·4 % sometimes skipping and 55·0 % never skipping. In the adjusted linear regression models, children and adolescents who always skipped breakfast reported lower levels of cognitive engagement (β = -0·26 (95 % CI -0·29, -0·25)), engagement with teachers (β = -0·17 (95 % CI -0·18, -0·15)) and school climate (β = -0·17 (95 % CI -0·19, -0·15)) compared with those who never skipped breakfast, after controlling for age, gender, health, sleep, sadness and worries, parental education, socio-economic status and geographical remoteness.

CONCLUSION

Consistent with our hypothesis, skipping breakfast was associated with lower cognitive and emotional engagement, which could be due to mechanisms such as short-term energy supply and long-term health impacts. Therefore, decreasing the prevalence of breakfast skipping could have a positive impact on school engagement.

Basic epidemiology of wellbeing among children and adolescents: A cross-sectional population level study

Wellbeing and mental health are fundamental rights of children and adolescents essential for sustainable development. Understanding the epidemiology of child and adolescent wellbeing is essential to informing population health approaches to improving wellbeing and preventing mental illness. The present study estimated the prevalence of wellbeing and how wellbeing indicators were distributed across social and economic groups. This study used data from the 2019 Wellbeing and Engagement Collection; an annual census conducted in South Australian schools that measures self-reported wellbeing in students aged 8–18 years (n = 75,966). We estimated the prevalence (n, %) of low, medium and high wellbeing across five outcomes: life satisfaction, optimism, sadness, worries and happiness, overall and stratified by gender, age, language background, socio-economic position and geographical remoteness. The prevalence of low wellbeing on each indicator was: happiness 13%, optimism 16%, life satisfaction 22%, sadness 16% and worries 25%. The prevalence of low wellbeing increased with age, particularly for females. For example, 22.5% of females aged 8–10 years had high levels of worries compared to 43.6% of 15 to 18-year old females. Socioeconomic inequality in wellbeing was evident on all indicators, with 19.5% of children in the most disadvantaged communities having high levels of sadness compared to 12.5% of children in the most advantaged communities. Many children and adolescents experience low wellbeing on one or more indicators (40.7%). The scale of this problem warrants a population-level preventative health response, in addition to a clinical, individual-level responses to acute mental health needs. Universal school-based programs that support social and emotional wellbeing have a role to play in this response but need to be supported by universal and targeted responses from outside of the education system.

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Many children and adolescents experience low wellbeing during their schooling years.

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Wellbeing declines with age and adolescent females are at a particularly high risk of low wellbeing.

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Children living in more disadvantaged communities have poorer wellbeing than their peers living in more affluent communities.