ACTGHS anxiety, adult age groups

Commentary

In 2022, 28.1% of respondents to the 2022 ACT General Health Survey aged 18 to 24 years, 22.9% of respondents aged 25 to 44 years, 14.1% of respondents aged 45 to 64 years and 14.3% of respondents aged 65 years and over reported that they had been told by a doctor that they have anxiety. Respondents aged 45 to 64 years were significantly less likely to report that they had been told that they have anxiety than respondents aged 18 to 24 years and 25 to 44 years and respondents aged 65 years and over were significantly less likely to report that they had been told that they have anxiety than respondents aged 25 to 44 years.

For the purpose of reporting the ACT General Health Survey data on HealthStats, if the 95% confidence intervals of the estimates do not overlap, they are considered to be significantly different.

Note: The indicator shows self-reported data collected through Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). Estimates were weighted to adjust for differences in the probability of selection among respondents and were benchmarked to the estimated residential population using the latest available Australian Bureau of Statistics population estimates.

Respondents to the 2022 survey were aged 18 years and over. Persons includes male, female, other and refused sex respondents and may not always add to the sum of male and female.

The following estimates have a relative standard error between 25% and 50% and should be used with caution:

• 2011/12 and 2015/16: respondents aged 18 to 24 years
• 2013/14 and 2020: respondents aged 18 to 24 years and respondents aged 65 years and over
• 2021: respondents aged 65 years and over.

Statistically significant differences are difficult to detect for smaller jurisdictions such as the Australian Capital Territory. Sometimes, even large apparent differences may not be statistically significant. This is particularly the case in breakdowns of small populations because the small sample size means that there is not enough power to identify even large differences as statistically significant.

Chart

Proportion of adults aged 18 years and over who have anxiety, by age group, ACT General Health Survey, 2011-2022

Data

To access the data, select "View source data" link at the bottom of the visualisation. This link will open up a data table that you can download.

Codes and sources

Q. In the past 12 months have you been told by a doctor that you have any of the following conditions?

Anxiety
Depression
A stress-related problem
Other mental health issue
None of these
Don't know
Refused

Don't know and refused responses were excluded from analysis.

A copy of the ACT General Health Survey questionnaires can be found in Data collections.