Objective: To report on self-reported physical and mental health of informal carers in rural regions of New South Wales, Australia. Methods: A cross-sectional community-based sample (n=222) of carers completed a questionnaire incorporating self-reported measures of health from validated international instruments including Medical Outcomes Study Scale (SF-36), the Centre for Epidemiology-Depression (CES-D) and Kessler-10 (K-10) Psychological Distress Scales, along with information on participant demographics and other key caregiving characteristics such as health condition of care recipient. Results: Rural carers' self-reported health was poor as evident on the SF-36 Physical and Mental Health component scores as well as each individual domain of the SF-36. Results from the CES-D and K-10 scores indicated very high rates of depressive symptoms and psychological distress. Over 70% of carers within the current study had CES-D scores indicative of depressive symptoms. Scores on the K-10 indicate almost half the carers were experiencing high levels of psychological distress, which is over 4 times the rate reported in the general Australian population. Conclusions and implications: Results from this study were compared to Australian population normative data and were found to be significantly below Australian age-matched population norms for SF-36, CES-D and K-10. These findings illustrate the poor health profile of informal carers relative to the general Australian population, especially in terms of depressive symptoms and psychological distress. This highlights the need for additional support for rural carers in order to ease the accumulated mental and physical health burdens of this group.

Associations between intimate partner violence (IPV) and poor physical and mental health of women have been demonstrated in the international and national literature across numerous studies. This paper presents a review of the literature on this topic. The 75 papers included in this review cover both original research studies and those which undertook secondary analyses of primary data sources. The reviewed research papers published from 2006 to 2012 include quantitative and qualitative studies from Western and developing countries. The results show that while there is variation in prevalence of IPV across various cultural settings, IPV was associated with a range of mental health issues including depression, PTSD, anxiety, self-harm, and sleep disorders. In most studies, these effects were observed using validated measurement tools. IPV was also found to be associated with poor physical health including poor functional health, somatic disorders, chronic disorders and chronic pain, gynaecological problems, and increased risk of STIs. An increased risk of HIV was reported to be associated with a history of sexual abuse and violence. The implications of the study findings in relation to methodological issues, clinical significance, and future research direction are discussed.

Objective

To investigate differences in self-reported health among Australian women with a history of intimate partner violence (IPV) in relation to rurality of residence.

Methods

Data were drawn from six survey waves of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health 1973–78 birth cohort. Self-reported general and mental health scores derived from the SF-36 scale were compared for women with a history of IPV living in metropolitan, regional and rural areas. Multivariable generalised estimating equations were constructed adjusting for income hardship, number of children, education, social support, age and marital status.

Results

Women with a history of IPV living in regional and rural areas had no significant differences in self-reported general health scores compared to their metropolitan counterparts. Rural women affected by IPV had slightly better self-reported mental health than equivalent women living in metropolitan or regional areas. The socio-demographic factors with the strongest association with self-reported health were income, education, social support, and number of children.

Conclusions

Women in regional and rural areas were no more disadvantaged, in terms of self-reported general health or mental health, than IPV affected women living in major cities in Australia.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is known to be linked to significant negative physical and mental health outcomes. This study addresses a gap in the Australian IPV literature by investigating lifetime IPV prevalence by rurality of residence, using data from a populationbased sample of young women. The overall lifetime IPV prevalence rate in the sample was 21.6%, but there were significant differences in IPV rates from major cities (19.6%), inner regional areas (24.4%) and other rural areas (26.1%). After adjusting for demographic variables, multivariable analysis revealed that there were still significantly raised odds of women from inner regional (OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.01-1.33) and other rural areas (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.11-1.56) reporting lifetime IPV compared to women from major cities. Multivariable analysis also showed that a history of IPV was significantly associated with women being separated/divorced/widowed, having lower levels of education, income hardship and limited available social support.