Mental health

Health Domain

Mental health

A person’s perception of the level of their mental health has direct connection with how they perceive their wellbeing.

Mental health status

This measure shows the proportion of adult Canberrans who rate their mental health as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. Mental health is about more than the absence of mental illness. It is fundamental to our ability to think, emote, interact with each other, earn a living and enjoy life.

In 2022, around half of the people surveyed felt that their mental health was ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. Men were more likely to rate their mental health as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ than women in 2022. Young people aged 18-24 are less likely to rate their mental health as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’.

Between 2018 and 2022, the proportion of ACT adults whose self-rated mental health was ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ decreased. The longer-term mental wellbeing impacts of recent stressful events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are still emerging.

ACT General Health Survey.

Line graph of percentage of Canberrans reporting very good or excellent mental health, by year from 2018 to 2022. In 2022, 48.7% of Canberrans reported very good or excellent mental health compared to 46.9% in 2021.

Respondents were asked to rate their mental health during the past 4 weeks selecting from ‘excellent’, ‘very good’, ‘good’, ‘fair’ or ‘poor’.

This indicator shows self-reported data collected through computer-assisted telephone interviewing. 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.

Persons include respondents who identified as male, female, other and those who refused to answer.

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.

K6 psychological distress scale

This measure shows the proportion of people who self-report psychological distress indicating a probable serious mental illness.

This is important to understand, as mental illness can impact how people think, feel and behave. It can affect their physical health and finances. Knowing the level of distress helps us predict the potential demand on clinical mental health services.

We use the Kessler 6 (K6) scale as an indicator of probable serious mental illness at a population level.

In 2022, respondents aged 25 to 44 years were more likely to report a K6 score indicating probable serious mental illness than respondents aged 45 to 64.

The overall proportion remained stable between 2018 and 2022.

ACT General Health Survey.

Line graph of percentage of Canberrans who self-report high levels of psychological distress, by year from 2018 to 2022. In 2022, 6.3% of Canberrans self-report high levels of psychological distress compared to 5.5% in 2021.

The Kessler 6 (K6) scale was developed to discriminate cases of serious mental illness from non-cases. Find out more at Harvard’s National Comorbidity Survey.

It uses a 5-level response scale about how often someone reports feeling nervous, hopeless, restless or fidgety, that everything was an effort, so sad that nothing could cheer them up and worthless in the past 4 weeks.

Probable serious mental illness is based on a score of 19-30. This corresponds with the score categorisation used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). For more information, visit ABS’s Information Paper: Use of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale in ABS Health Surveys.

If a respondent was missing one value, the missing value was replaced with the mean of the 5 non-missing values. If a respondent was missing more than one value, they were excluded from analysis.

The indicator shows self-reported data collected through computer-assisted telephone interviewing. 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 ABS population estimates.

Persons include respondents who identified as male, female, other and those who refused to answer.

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

  • 2018 and 2020: males
  • 2019 and 2022: respondents aged 65 years and over.

The following estimates have not been published due to small numbers or a relative standard error greater than 50%:

  • 2018–2022: respondents aged 18 to 24 years
  • 2018, 2020 and 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.