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Identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the Australian population

BACKGROUND: Single time-point assessments of psychological distress are often used to indicate chronic mental health problems, but the validity of this approach is unclear. The aims of this study were to investigate how a single assessment of distress relates to longer-term assessment and quantify m...

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Autores principales: Welsh, J., Korda, R. J., Banks, E., Strazdins, L., Joshy, G., Butterworth, P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7059354/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32138694
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-020-00938-8
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author Welsh, J.
Korda, R. J.
Banks, E.
Strazdins, L.
Joshy, G.
Butterworth, P.
author_facet Welsh, J.
Korda, R. J.
Banks, E.
Strazdins, L.
Joshy, G.
Butterworth, P.
author_sort Welsh, J.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Single time-point assessments of psychological distress are often used to indicate chronic mental health problems, but the validity of this approach is unclear. The aims of this study were to investigate how a single assessment of distress relates to longer-term assessment and quantify misclassification from using single measures to indicate chronic distress. METHODS: Data came from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, a nationally representative study of Australian adults. Psychological distress, measured with the Kessler10 and categorised into low (scores:10- < 12), mild (12- < 16), moderate (16- < 22) and high (22–50), has been assessed in the Survey biennially since wave 7. Among respondents who were aged ≥25 years and participated in all waves in which distress was measured, we describe agreement in distress categories, and using a mixed linear model adjusting for age and sex we estimate change in scores, over a two-, four-, six- and eight-year follow-up period. We applied weights, benchmarked to the Australian population, to all analyses. RESULTS: Two-years following initial assessment, proportions within identical categories of distress were 66.0% for low, 54.5% for mild, 44.0% for moderate and 50.3% for high, while 94.1% of those with low distress initially had low/mild distress and 81.4% with high distress initially had moderate/high distress. These patterns did not change materially as follow-up time increased. Over the full eight-year period, 77.3% of individuals with high distress initially reported high distress on ≥1 follow-up occasion. Age-and sex- adjusted change in K10 scores over a two-year period was 1.1, 0.5, − 0.7 and − 4.9 for low, mild, moderate and high distress, respectively, and also did not change materially as follow-up time increased. CONCLUSION: In the absence of repeated measures, single assessments are useful proxies for chronic distress. Our estimates could be used in bias analyses to quantify the magnitude of the bias resulting from use of single assessments to indicate chronic distress.
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spelling pubmed-70593542020-03-12 Identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the Australian population Welsh, J. Korda, R. J. Banks, E. Strazdins, L. Joshy, G. Butterworth, P. BMC Med Res Methodol Research Article BACKGROUND: Single time-point assessments of psychological distress are often used to indicate chronic mental health problems, but the validity of this approach is unclear. The aims of this study were to investigate how a single assessment of distress relates to longer-term assessment and quantify misclassification from using single measures to indicate chronic distress. METHODS: Data came from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, a nationally representative study of Australian adults. Psychological distress, measured with the Kessler10 and categorised into low (scores:10- < 12), mild (12- < 16), moderate (16- < 22) and high (22–50), has been assessed in the Survey biennially since wave 7. Among respondents who were aged ≥25 years and participated in all waves in which distress was measured, we describe agreement in distress categories, and using a mixed linear model adjusting for age and sex we estimate change in scores, over a two-, four-, six- and eight-year follow-up period. We applied weights, benchmarked to the Australian population, to all analyses. RESULTS: Two-years following initial assessment, proportions within identical categories of distress were 66.0% for low, 54.5% for mild, 44.0% for moderate and 50.3% for high, while 94.1% of those with low distress initially had low/mild distress and 81.4% with high distress initially had moderate/high distress. These patterns did not change materially as follow-up time increased. Over the full eight-year period, 77.3% of individuals with high distress initially reported high distress on ≥1 follow-up occasion. Age-and sex- adjusted change in K10 scores over a two-year period was 1.1, 0.5, − 0.7 and − 4.9 for low, mild, moderate and high distress, respectively, and also did not change materially as follow-up time increased. CONCLUSION: In the absence of repeated measures, single assessments are useful proxies for chronic distress. Our estimates could be used in bias analyses to quantify the magnitude of the bias resulting from use of single assessments to indicate chronic distress. BioMed Central 2020-03-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7059354/ /pubmed/32138694 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-020-00938-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Welsh, J.
Korda, R. J.
Banks, E.
Strazdins, L.
Joshy, G.
Butterworth, P.
Identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the Australian population
title Identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the Australian population
title_full Identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the Australian population
title_fullStr Identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the Australian population
title_full_unstemmed Identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the Australian population
title_short Identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the Australian population
title_sort identifying long-term psychological distress from single measures: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the australian population
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7059354/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32138694
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-020-00938-8
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