Mental health treatment use

Last updated: 10 Dec 2024

Females reported seeing a mental health professional or taking prescribed medication for a mental illness at higher rates than males

Mental health professionals were among health care providers with the largest increases in access rates since 2009

Most people who had been diagnosed with a mental health condition reported they saw a doctor or other medical practitioner regularly

Related indicator set: Key Performance Indicators for Australian Public Mental Health Services - Mental health treatment use.

When might people seek treatment?

Both mental illness and poor mental health occur frequently in the Australian population. National data on the prevalence and impact of mental illness shows that about 22% of Australians aged 16 to 85 years have experienced a mental illness in the preceding 12 months, and about 17% experienced high or very high levels of psychological distress in the preceding 4 weeks (with or without a diagnosable mental illness).

There is considerable variability in the ways in which a mental illness or poor mental health can impact an individual and the severity and duration of the related symptoms. As such, people can access a range of clinical and non-clinical mental health care and support services from across Australia’s mental health system.

Data sourced from mental health services, and rebate schemes such as Medicare, provide information about the activity, staffing and funding that are used to deliver care. For more information and data refer to Mental health services.

To complement national services data, this page reports survey data about people’s reported use of:

mental health professionals such as psychiatrists and psychologists
general practitioners
prescribed medication

The analyses presented in this report are based on data collected in the health module of the Household Income Labour and Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, which ran in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021. Some of the services reported by survey respondents aged 15 years and older may attract a rebate under Medicare services or pharmaceutical benefits schemes. Eligible services under these schemes may have changed during the different years of the survey and may impact comparability over time.

Spotlight data

Percent of mental health contacts and prescribed medication across Australian in 2021–22

Data sources: Self-report data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, wave 22; Medicare data from Medicare Benefits Scheme maintained by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care; Medications data from Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme maintained by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care.

Note: Reported proportions are estimates subject to non-response and sampling error.

For more information and data go to Medicare mental health services and Mental health prescriptions.

Report summary Expand

People experiencing a mental illness may choose to seek treatment for their condition. The Household Income Labour and Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey provides data of Australians' reported use of health practitioners and medications. In Australia, an estimated 11% of people aged 15 and older reported seeing a mental health professional during a year and 10% took prescribed medication for a mental illness.

The estimated proportion of Australians aged 15 and older who reported seeing a mental health professional has more than doubled from 2009 to 2021 (from 5% to 11%). In general (2021), people who reported seeing a mental health professional at higher rates are:

aged 15 to 25 years
female
not satisfied with their own health status
experiencing comorbidity
experiencing moderate or severe disability from their condition
experiencing difficulties in education or work due to their condition
unemployed
diagnosed with a mental health condition

Of Australians who reported being diagnosed with a mental health condition, an estimated 42% saw a mental health professional in the previous year.

The estimated proportion of Australians aged 15 and older who reported taking prescribed medication for a mental illness has doubled between 2013 and 2021 (from 5% to 10%). In general (2021), people taking prescribed medication for a mental illness at higher rates are:

aged 55 to 64 years
female
not satisfied with their own health status
experiencing comorbidity
experiencing disability moderate or severe disability from their condition
experiencing difficulties in education or work due to their condition
residing in areas with greater socio-economic disadvantage
unemployed
diagnosed with a mental health condition

Of Australians who reported being diagnosed with a mental health condition, more than half (an estimated 53% in 2021) took prescribed medication for their mental illness in the previous year.

How does this compare with other types of health care providers? Expand

Health care providers with the highest access rates in 2021 were General Practitioners (GP) and Specialist doctors (83% and 31% of Australians, respectively), followed by Optometrists and Hospital doctors (30% and 17% respectively). These were consistently highest from 2009 to 2021. Mental health professionals were among health care providers with the highest increases in access rates since 2009 (increasing from 5% to 11%).

Figure 1: Per cent of Australians who reported seeing a health care provider

Year	A General Practitioner	A mental health professional	Any other allied health provider, such as a speech therapist, audiologist, or occupational therapist	An alternative health practitioner, such as a naturopath, acupuncturist or herbalist	A chiropractor or osteopath	A hospital doctor (i.e., in outpatients or casualty)	A community nurse, practice nurse, nurse practitioner or midwife	An optometrist	A physiotherapist	A podiatrist (foot doctor)	A specialist doctor (excluding in outpatients or casualty of a hospital)
2009	86%	5%	6%	5%	10%	16%	2%	25%	14%	7%	29%
2013	84%	7%	6%	6%	11%	17%	3%	26%	15%	9%	30%
2017	84%	9%	5%	7%	11%	17%	3%	29%	16%	10%	30%
2021	83%	11%	5%	11%	11%	17%	4%	30%	17%	11%	31%

Source: Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, wave 22.

How does this compare with prescribed medication use for other conditions? Expand

Around 16% of people who reported taking any type of prescribed medication in 2021 took medication for a Mental illness specifically. Prescribed medication use for a Mental illness had the highest increase over time compared to other health conditions. The most common condition for which Australians took prescribed medication was High blood pressure or hypertension from 2013 to 2021 (12% of Australians in 2021).

Figure 2: Per cent of Australians who reported taking prescribed medication

Year	For circulatory condition	For high blood pressure or hypertension	For cancer	For diabetes - Type 2	For diabetes - Type 1	For asthma	For heart disease	For chronic bronchitis or emphysema	For arthritis or osteoporosis	For a mental illness
2013	2%	11%	1%	3%	1%	4%	3%	1%	7%	5%
2017	2%	11%	1%	4%	1%	4%	4%	1%	6%	8%
2021	2%	12%	1%	4%	1%	5%	4%	1%	6%	10%

Treatment seeking behaviours are similar across states and territories Expand

Figure 3: Per cent of Australians who reported seeing a mental health professional or taking prescribed medication for a mental illness by state or territory

Who accesses treatment?

Around 2 in 3 people who saw a mental health professional and also took prescribed medication for a mental illness were Female. Most people:

resided in Major Cities of Australia (73%)
were aged 18–64 years (88%)
were non-Indigenous (94%)

People who reported taking prescribed medication for a mental illness have different demographic characteristics compared to people who reported seeing a mental health professional. People who reported taking prescribed medication are:

Older than people who reported seeing a mental health professional. More than half of people who reported taking prescribed medication were aged 45 years or older, while more than half of people who reported seeing a mental health professional were aged 15–34 years.
More socioeconomically disadvantaged. The largest proportion of people taking prescribed medication were people in the most disadvantaged group, while the largest proportion of people accessing a psychologist/psychiatrist were people in the least disadvantaged group.

Figure 4: Demographic characteristics of Australians who reported accessing mental health treatment

Females seek treatment at higher rates than males Expand

Our analysis found that males made fewer visits to the GP compared to women. When other factors were held constant, it was estimated that females saw a GP more than twice as often (Wilkins & Warren 2012). Similarly, the AIHW report on the health of Australia’s females (AIHW 2023a), found that women tend to access all health care providers more often than men. In 2021–22, 88% of females in Australia saw a GP compared with 79% of males (AIHW 2023a).

This pattern was also observed in treatment seeking behaviours for mental health specifically. According to the AIHW report, 21% of females saw a health professional for their mental health and only 15% of males did during 2021–22 (AIHW 2023a). In addition, the proportion of females seeing a mental health professional is higher than the proportion of males doing so.

Overall, use of mental health professionals by females and males has at least doubled since 2009. For females, access has increased at a rate higher than that for males from 2017 to 2021 (from 10% to 14% compared with 7% to 9%).

In addition, since 2013, the proportion of females taking prescribed medication for depression, anxiety or other mental illness is higher than the proportion of males. The use of prescribed medication for depression, anxiety or other mental illness for females has doubled since 2013.

Younger people saw mental health professionals more frequently Expand

The proportion of Australians who reported seeing a mental health professional declines with increasing age (Figure 5.2). Australians aged 15 to 24 maintained the highest proportion of access to a mental health professional compared to other age groups since 2013. Australians aged 65 years and over did not show an increase of mental health professional visits since 2009; people aged 64 and under did.

In 2013, the rate of prescribed medication use for a mental illness slightly increased with age, reaching the highest level for people aged 65 to 74 (Figure 5.2). However, rates of medication use for people aged 18 to 24 have increased more rapidly to 2021, while rates for people aged 65 and over have remained relatively stable over the same period of time (Figure 5.1).

Young females saw mental health professionals more frequently Expand

Females and males aged 65 years and over reported similar mental health professional access rates across all years of surveying. For females aged 64 and under, the increase of access rates between 2017 and 2021 was more pronounced compared with the changes across previous years of surveying.

In 2021, females aged 55 to 64 years reported the highest rate of prescribed medication use for a mental illness compared with other groups (16%) (Figure 5.2). While 15% of females aged 18 to 24 reported taking prescribed medication for a mental illness in 2021, only 4% of males in this age group did.

Figure 5: Per cent of Australians who reported seeing a mental health professional or taking prescribed medication by age and sex

Birth cohorts Expand

People born in the 2000s report higher access rates compared with people born in the 1990s and 1980s

In each year when the health module was collected, the HILDA data shows that rates of people seeing a mental health professional are highest for younger age groups (Figure 6). However, this age difference has become larger in more recent years (Figure 5), suggesting evidence of a cohort or period effect.

More about cohort and period effects

A cohort effect reflects the unique experiences or exposures of a group of people with common characteristics (for example, birth year) also known as generations, as they move across time (Rosow 1978). This acknowledges that people’s experiences can be dependent on historical changes or social context affecting only a specific group and independent of age (different to generations of people born earlier or later).

In contrast, changes in behaviours across multiple cohorts of different ages in reaction to events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are referred to as period effects (Keyes et al. 2010). Differences in behaviours across cohorts that persist over a person’s lifespan may reflect how changes in societal norms, attitudes and perceptions (social context) affect cohorts in different ways (Botha et al. 2023). For example, some research suggests that the penetration of social media has impacted younger cohorts differently due to their lifetime developmental stage (a stage of psychosocial development) (Branson et al. 2022). In current literature, these differences are referred to as the ‘cohort effect’ – the shared behaviour of individuals born in or around certain years, for example ‘Millennials’ or ‘Baby Boomers’ (Botha et al. 2023).

Further analysis shows that when aged 21, people born in the 2000s and 1990s saw a mental health professional at higher rates than people who were born in the 1980s at age 21 (15%, 12% and 7% respectively) (Figure 6.1). These differences are more pronounced for females (Figure 6.1.1). Differences between birth cohorts are smaller at older ages; for example, at age 70, people born in the 1940s, 1930s and 1920s saw a mental health professional at similar rates (3%, 2%, 1%) (Figure 6.1).

While further analysis is required to estimate the effect of specific events on access rates, there are some key events within the mental health service space that may have impacted differences over time. For example, the Medicare Better Access initiative was introduced in 2006 and aimed to improve access to mental health professionals and care (Department of Health and Aged Care 2024). For more information refer to the Mental health services activity monitoring quarterly data section on MHOR.

The AIHW’s analysis of HILDA data does not show much evidence of a cohort effect for the use of prescribed medication for a mental illness among older cohorts. In each year, when the health module was collected, the rates of people using prescribed medication for a mental illness are highest for people aged 55 to 74, and the age gap compared with older age groups is relatively stable across all survey years (Figure 5).

Figure 6: Per cent of Australians who reported seeing a mental health professional or taking prescribed medication for a mental illness by birth cohort

Do people diagnosed with a mental health condition access treatment?

Survey question: During the last 12 months, have you seen a family doctor or another GP about your health?

If yes: Have you been told by a doctor or nurse that you have depression or anxiety or other mental illness?

Over time, around 5 in 6 Australians reported seeing a General Practitioner (GP) during a year. This pattern is similar across all survey years (ranging between 83% and 86%). Of these, an estimated 1 in 5 people reported being told by a doctor or nurse they had a mental health condition such as depression or anxiety or other mental illness (22% in 2021, an increase from 12% in 2009). The estimated prevalence rates in HILDA are influenced by how prone individuals are to access mental health care services. “This is unlikely to be the same across demographic groups” (Wilkins et al. 2019). This section reports on treatment seeking behaviours of this group of people (around 19% of the population (AIHW 2024a), referred to as ‘people diagnosed with a mental health condition’.

Survey questions for people who reported having a mental health condition or additional health conditions:

During the last 12 months, have you seen a family doctor or another GP about your health?
Do you regularly see a doctor or other medical practitioner about (any) of this/these condition(s)?
- If yes: Approximately how often do you see a doctor or medical practitioner about your condition(s)? [If more than one condition, obtain an answer for the condition for which the respondent most regularly sees a medical practitioner].

Most people diagnosed with a mental health condition saw a medical practitioner Expand

Almost all (95%) people who were diagnosed with a mental health condition reported seeing a GP (in 2021). It is not known whether their visit to a GP was related to their mental health.

For people who were diagnosed with a mental health condition and no other health condition, around 58% reported regularly seeing a doctor or other medical practitioner. Of this group, some reported seeing the doctor or medical practitioner less often than monthly but at least once every 6 months (51%) and at least monthly (45%).

Some people reported having been diagnosed with depression or anxiety as well as another health condition (comorbidity). For those people, 84% reported they regularly saw a doctor or other medical practitioner.

Other reporting has shown that, overall, the proportion of people diagnosed with a health condition who saw a doctor annually increased for most conditions from 2009 to 2021, except for depression or anxiety and other mental illness (Wilkins et al. 2024).

Figure 7: Per cent of people diagnosed with a mental health condition who reported seeing a doctor or medical practitioner for their condition

More people with a mental health condition saw a mental health professional in recent years Expand

In 2021, 42% of Australians who were told they had depression, anxiety or other mental illness saw a mental health professional, an increase from 35% in 2009.

Females saw a mental health professional at higher rates than males in recent years

In 2009 and 2013, females and males saw a mental health professional at similar rates; however, during 2017 and 2021, the proportion of females was higher than the proportion of males. This gap increased over the four years between surveys with an increase for females from 41% to 44% while the rate for males remained constant at 38%.

More than half of Australians aged 15–24 saw a mental health professional

The proportion of people who saw a mental health professional decreases as age increases (Figure 8.2). In 2021, 58% of Australians aged 15–24 saw a mental health professional.

More people with a mental health condition took prescribed medication in recent years Expand

In 2021, 53% of Australians diagnosed with depression, anxiety or other mental illness took prescribed medication for their condition, an increase from 42% in 2013.

Females and males took prescribed medication at similar rates

The use of prescribed medication for mental illness is similar for both males and females for the years where data is available (55% and 52% respectively in 2021).

3 in 4 Australians aged 65 and over took prescribed medication for their condition

The proportion of people who took prescribed medication for their condition increases as age increases (Figure 8.2), reaching the highest rate at age 65 and over.

In 2021, 74% of Australians aged 65 and over took prescribed medication for their condition, showing no change from 2013.

Figure 8: Per cent of people diagnosed with a mental health condition who saw a mental health professional or took prescribed medication for their mental illness by age, sex and year

There are a range of factors that may impact access to mental health treatment Expand

Private health insurance

Survey question: Apart from Medicare, are you currently covered by private health insurance?

People who were not covered by private health insurance reported taking prescribed medication for a mental illness at higher rates than those who were across all years of data (12% compared to 8% in 2021). For both groups, access rates to a mental health professional were similar in 2021 (around 11%). However, in previous years, people who were not covered reported higher rates than those who were.

Satisfaction with own health

Survey question: Pick a number between 0 and 10 that indicates your level of satisfaction with … your health.

In 2021, 86% of Australians reported being satisfied with their health (reporting a number between 6 & 10), 7% reported being neither satisfied or dissatisfied (5), and the remaining 7% reported being dissatisfied (4 or less). However, mean health satisfaction has declined over time for both males and females (Wilkins et al. 2020).

Our analysis also showed that people who were not satisfied with their own health saw a mental health professional and took prescribed medication for a mental illness at higher rates than those who were satisfied with their own health across all years of data.

There is no consistent evidence in current literature of the association between individual’s satisfaction with their own health and treatment-seeking behaviours (Ogunyemi et al. 2021, Bourne 2010).

Comorbidity status

Survey question: Have you been told by a doctor or nurse that you have any of these conditions? People experiencing comorbidity are those who reported more than one condition.

The proportion of people experiencing comorbidity who saw a mental health professional increased from 7% in 2009 to 13% in 2021; over this period , they accessed a mental health professional at higher rates than people who reported having only one health condition.

The proportion of people experiencing comorbidity who took prescribed medication for a mental illness increased from 13% in 2013 to 18% in 2021; over this period, they took prescribed medication at higher rates than people who reported having only one health condition.

These findings are consistent with research that suggests people experiencing mental illness are more likely to seek treatment when there is comorbidity (Garcia-Soriano et al. 2014, Fine et al. 2018).

Disability status

Survey question: Do you have any long-term health condition, impairment or disability that restricts you in your everyday activities, and has lasted or is likely to last, for 6 months or more?

If yes: Does your condition(s) limit the type of work or the amount of work you can do?

Consistent with the HILDA statistical report (Wilkins et al. 2024), people with ‘moderate disability’ are those who report a moderate work restriction (score of 1 to 7 on a scale between 0 and 10); and those with a ‘severe disability’ report a severe work restriction (score of 8 to 10).

People who had severe disability took prescribed medication for a mental illness and saw a mental health professional at higher rates compared with people who had moderate disability or who did not have disability across all years of surveying.

Impact of illness

Overall, our analysis of the HILDA survey showed that people who reported having any health condition accessed treatment at higher rates than those who reported not having any health condition. The following groups of people with difficulties or limitations due to their condition saw a mental health professional and took prescribed medication at higher rates:

People with difficulties in education
people with difficulties in employment
people with work limitations
people who require supervision

Figure 9: Per cent of people who reported seeing a mental health professional or took prescribed medication for a mental illness by health-related factor and year

Life circumstances may act as enablers or barriers to mental health care Expand

The conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live and age can act as enablers or barriers to seeking health care and can also influence health (WHO 2024). These factors are also known as social determinants of health and can include financial accessibility (for example, socioeconomic status and employment status), geographical accessibility (for example, remoteness of the area where people live) and level of education (Houghton et al. 2023; Khatri and Assefa 2022).

Socioeconomic status

The estimated proportion of people who took prescribed medication for a mental illness decreases with greater socio-economic advantage (14% of people living in more disadvantaged areas and 6% living in more advantaged areas in 2021). Conversely, the estimated proportion of people who saw a mental health professional did not vary significantly according to socio-economic level.

Remoteness

Estimates of people residing in remote and very remote areas of Australia using HILDA data are unreliable due to small numbers and should be interpreted with caution. Across all years, the proportion of people who saw a mental health professional was highest for people who resided in Major Cities or Inner Regional areas compared with people who resided in other areas; however, the difference was not statistically significant.

The Rural and remote health report stated that people living in rural and remote areas face barriers to accessing health care “due to challenges of geographic spread, low population density, limited infrastructure, and the higher costs of delivering rural and remote health care” (AIHW 2024b).

Student status

Around 11% of people who were not studying full-time (including non-students and part-time students) accessed a mental health professional in 2021, and increase from 6% in 2009; however, this proportion is consistently lower than the proportion of full-time students who accessed treatment (18% in 2021).

The proportion of people taking prescribed medication does not vary significantly by student status.

Employment status

The proportion of people who saw a mental health professional was highest for people who were unemployed compared with people who were not in the labour force or employed across all years. This proportion increased from 13% in 2009 to 28% in 2021.

The proportion of people who took prescribed medication for a mental illness was highest for people who were unemployed compared with people who were not in the labour force or employed (20% compared with 15% and 6% respectively, in 2021). This pattern was similar across the years.

Highest level of education

The proportion of people who saw a mental health professional did not vary significantly across different education levels. This pattern was similar across years and ranged between 11% and 13% in 2021.

While the proportion of people who reported taking prescribed medication for a mental illness was highest for people who completed Year 11 or below across all years (12% in 2021), people who completed Year 12 or a Certificate III or IV reported similar rates in 2021 (10% and 12% respectively). People who completed a Bachelors or Honours or a Postgraduate degree reported the lowest proportions across all years (6% in 2021).

Figure 10: Per cent of Australians who reported seeing a mental health professional or taking prescribed medication for a mental illness by life circumstances

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic Expand

The preventative measures taken during the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic such as lockdowns and health care provision restrictions, or changes in consumer’s treatment seeking behaviours to reduce their chance of contracting the virus, may have impacted accessibility to health care (AIHW 2021; 2022).

Analysis of the 2021 HILDA survey showed that around 9% of respondents reported that health providers such as doctors, clinics or hospitals deferred or cancelled treatments or appointments because of the pandemic, and around 6% reported that they themselves deferred or cancelled treatment because of the pandemic. Although health treatment seeking behaviours changed overall, mental health treatment varied minimally. Only around 1% of respondents reported deferring or cancelling their treatments or appointments with mental health professionals or having their treatments or appointments deferred or cancelled by the service. For more information on the use of mental health services during the pandemic visit Mental health services activity monitoring

Figure 11: Per cent of people with a deferred or cancelled healthcare appointment due to COVID

Deferral or cancellation type	Male	Female	Total
Mental health professional defer or cancel treatments or appointments	1%
Mental health professional defer or cancel treatments or appointments		2%	1%
You defer or cancel treatments or appointments with a mental health professional	1%	1%	1%
Doctor, clinic or hospital defer or cancel treatments or appointments	7%
Doctor, clinic or hospital defer or cancel treatments or appointments		11%	9%
You defer or cancel treatments or appointments with doctor, clinic or hospital	4%	8%	6%

Source: Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, wave 22

Where can I find more information

Many people improve clinically after treatment. If the information presented raises any issues for you, these resources can help:

Lifeline (Phone 13 11 14)
Kids Helpline (Phone 1800 551 800)
Head to Health mental health portal

Notes to interpret the data

Reliability of estimates from the HILDA Survey Expand

As seen with any other survey, the estimates derived from analysis of the HILDA Survey may be subject to two types of error, non-sampling and sampling errors.

Non-sampling error

Non-sampling errors may include non-response, errors by respondents or data entry errors by interviewers, and errors in coding and processing data (ABS 2023).

One of the most common sources of non-sampling error is non-response. This can occur if people are unwilling or unable to participate, or if they cannot be contacted (when a participant provides responses in one wave but not in the following waves this is called attrition). Non-response can impact the reliability of results and introduce biases. However, attrition and non-response are generally only a serious concern when they occur in a non-random way (that is, when the persons who did not respond have characteristics that are systematically different from those who did) (Watson 2012).

The 2022 HILDA User Manual provides some information on the characteristics of non-respondents and attritors:

Non-respondents from wave 1 were more likely to be living in Sydney, male or unmarried, aged 20 to 24 or 65+, or born in a non-English speaking country (Watson and Wooden (2002, pp.3-8)
Attritors from wave 2 were more likely to be living in Sydney and Melbourne; aged 15 to 24 years; single or living in a de facto marriage; born in a non-English-speaking country; Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander; living in a flat, unit or apartment; of relatively low levels of education; unemployed; or working in blue-collar or low-skilled occupations. More details on factors affecting attrition are provided in Watson and Wooden (2004; 2011).

To reduce the potential impact of non-response or attrition, the HILDA data allows one to make adjustments when undertaking analysis. One such way to make adjustments for attrition is through the use of sample weights and imputation of missing values. For more information on the use of weights, see the Weights section below.

Sampling error

Sampling error refers to the variability that arises by chance when a sample, rather than the entire population, is surveyed. Because the estimates are derived from information collected from a specific sample of households, they are subject to sampling variability. This means that the estimates may differ from the actual measures that would have been obtained if data from all the Australian population had been included in the survey (ABS 2023).

The HILDA Survey uses weights to adjust for unequal probabilities of selection into the sample. For more information on the use of weights see the Weights section below.

Remoteness areas

It is important to note that while very remote areas of Australia were not included in the initial sampling process for HILDA, the data includes people who moved there in subsequent years.

Weights Expand

All estimates from our analysis presented in this section use weighted data. The HILDA data uses weights to make inferences about the Australian population from a sample. Weighted data represents the population's demographic characteristics by aligning the estimates with known external population benchmarks (Watson 2012). The benchmarks used in the weighting process for state, part of state/territory, sex and age come from the Estimated Residential Population figures produced by the ABS based on the Census, updated for births, deaths, immigration, emigration and interstate migration. The person benchmarks for labour force status and marital status come from the ABS Labour Force Survey. These benchmarks may change from release to release (Watson 2012). This process allows one to use survey responses to estimate population proportions.

Confidence intervals Expand

One way to measure the extent to which a sample estimate might have varied compared to the population parameter (because only a sample of dwellings were included) is given by the standard error (SE) estimate. Estimates in this report should be interpreted with caution by considering proper standard errors of the estimates. Standard errors may also be used to derive a confidence interval.

A confidence interval expresses the sampling error as a range in which the population value is expected to lie at a given level of confidence. Using 95% confidence limits means that if you took repeated random samples from the population and calculated the parameter and confidence limits for each sample, the confidence interval for 95% of your samples would include the true value.

In this section, confidence intervals are presented for the proportion estimates (%) and represented in data visualisations by black bars or shaded area surrounding lines. If the intervals for comparison groups do not overlap – that is, they do not include the same values in the range – the difference between groups can be generally inferred to be statistically significant. Proportion estimates are preceded by an asterisk if the corresponding confidence interval is greater than 10 percentage points. Users should give the confidence interval particular consideration when using this estimate.

Respondent bias in self-reported information Expand

It is possible that errors may be introduced into a self-report survey either consciously or unconsciously by respondents through issues such as “question misinterpretation, sensitivity, or respondent fatigue” (AIHW 2023b; ABS 2023). This report made use of self-report data from the HILDA survey, and so the findings may be subject to a degree of respondent bias.

Respondent bias may be present when respondents have different interpretations of what is a mental health professional and/or when they cannot properly recollect whether they have been told by a doctor or nurse they have depression or anxiety. In addition, types of mental health professionals or service characteristics such as setting or funding source (public vs private) were not captured in HILDA, making it difficult to define what respondents may consider to be mental health treatment.

Potential confounding Expand

The scope of this report is limited to descriptive statistics. These estimates did not adjust for potential confounding of factors included in the analysis. For example, there is some indication of potential positive associations between disability status and health care use. Potential positive correlations were also observed between labour force participation and health care use that may be explained through disability status. This suggests that there may be interaction effects influencing key findings in this report that have not been adjusted for as part of the analysis.

Data source Expand

Data reported in this section are sourced from the Household Income & Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Survey is a household-based panel study that collects yearly information about economic and personal wellbeing, labour market dynamics and family life. This survey was first collected in 2001. Information collected includes family relationships, income and employment, and health and education. The HILDA Survey follows the lives of more than 17,000 Australians each year, aiming to tell the stories of the same group of Australians over the course of their lives (Melbourne Institute 2024).

Refer to the HILDA Survey website for more information.

References Expand

ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2023) Types of error, ABS website, accessed 22 July 2024.

AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) (2021) Mental health impact of COVID-19 [PDF 1.3MB], AIHW website, accessed 22 July 2024.

AIHW (2022) Changes in the health of Australians during the COVID-19 period [PDF 1.4MB], AIHW website, accessed 22 July 2024.

AIHW (2023a) How does the health of males and females compare?, AIHW website, accessed 22 July 2024.

AIHW (2023b) Veteran social connectedness - Technical notes, AIHW website, accessed 19 January 2024.

AIHW (2024a) Prevalence and impact of mental illness, AIHW website, accessed 19 January 2024.

AIHW (2024b) Rural and remote health, AIHW website, accessed 19 January 2024.

Botha F, Morris R, Butterworth P and Glozier N (2023) ‘The kids are not alright: differential trends in mental ill-health in Australia’ [2.2MB PDF], Melbourne Institute Working Papers Series, accessed 22 July 2024.

Bourne PA (2010) ‘Self-reported health and medical care-seeking behaviour of uninsured Jamaicans’, North American journal of medical sciences, 2(2), 71–80, doi:10.4297/najms.2010.271.

Branson M, March E, Marrington JZ (2022) ‘Talkin’ Bout My Generation: The Utility of Different Age Cohorts to Predict Antisocial Behaviour on Social Media’, Social Media and Technology Across the Lifespan, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-99049-7_3.

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