Objective: To determine the psychological wellbeing of sole mothers in Australia. Design: Cross-sectional analyses of survey data from The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Participants: 9689 younger women (aged 22-27 years) surveyed in 2000 and 12 338 mid-age women (aged 47-52 years) surveyed in 1998. Main outcome measures: Demographic characteristics and economic status; prevalence of suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and psychoactive medication use; depression (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale) and psychological health (the Mental Health Component Score of the Medical Outcome Short Form Health Survey [SF-36]).Results: Among the younger women, sole mothers were more likely than other women to have experienced suicidal thoughts (odds ratio [OR], 2.18; 95% CI, 1.45-3.27) and selfharm (OR, 3.25; 95% CI, 1.97-5.38). Among the younger and mid-age women, sole mothers were the group most likely to have used medication for depression (ORs, 2.75 [95% CI,] and 2.29 [95% CI, 1.56-3.37], respectively). They were more than twice as likely to have experienced depression, and had significantly poorer psychological health (P < 0.001). After adjusting for economic status, only depression and psychological health remained significantly associated with sole motherhood, and the strength of these relationships was reduced. Conclusions: Economic status partly accounts for the relatively poorer psychological health of sole mothers. Sole mothers are more likely than other women to experience MJA 2006; 184: 265-268 debilitating psychological health problems.

BackgroundRecruitment and retention of participants to large-scale, longitudinal studies can be a challenge, particularly when trying to target young women. Qualitative inquiries with members of the target population can prove valuable in assisting with the development of effective recruiting techniques. Researchers in the current study made use of focus group methodology to identify how to encourage young women aged 18-23 to participate in a national cohort online survey.ObjectiveOur objectives were to gain insight into how to encourage young women to participate in a large-scale, longitudinal health survey, as well as to evaluate the survey instrument and mode of administration.MethodsThe Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health used focus group methodology to learn how to encourage young women to participate in a large-scale, longitudinal Web-based health survey and to evaluate the survey instrument and mode of administration. Nineteen groups, involving 75 women aged 18-23 years, were held in remote, regional, and urban areas of New South Wales and Queensland.ResultsFocus groups were held in 2 stages, with discussions lasting from 19 minutes to over 1 hour. The focus groups allowed concord to be reached regarding survey promotion using social media, why personal information was needed, strategies to ensure confidentiality, how best to ask sensitive questions, and survey design for ease of completion. Recruitment into the focus groups proved difficult: the groups varied in size between 1 and 8 participants, with the majority conducted with 2 participants.ConclusionsIntense recruitment efforts and variation in final focus group numbers highlights the “hard to reach” character of young women. However, the benefits of conducting focus group discussions as a preparatory stage to the recruitment of a large cohort for a longitudinal Web-based health survey were upheld.

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