The Childhood Resilience Study: Resilience and emotional and behavioural wellbeing experienced by Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boys and girls aged 5-9 years

Deirdre Gartland; Arwen Nikolof; Fiona Mensah; Graham Gee; Karen Glover; Cathy Leane; Heather Carter; Stephanie Janne Brown

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0301620

The Childhood Resilience Study: Resilience and emotional and behavioural wellbeing experienced by Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boys and girls aged 5-9 years

PLoS One. 2024 Apr 16;19(4):e0301620. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301620. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Deirdre Gartland^{1

2}, Arwen Nikolof^{2

3}, Fiona Mensah^{1

2}, Graham Gee^{1

4}, Karen Glover^{1

3}, Cathy Leane⁵, Heather Carter⁶, Stephanie Janne Brown^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Intergenerational Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
² Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
³ South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, Women's and Kids Theme, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
⁴ School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁵ Women's and Children's Health Network, South Australia Health, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
⁶ Department for Education, Aboriginal Education Directorate, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.

Abstract

Background: Resilience is a process of drawing on internal or external strengths to regain, sustain or improve adaptive outcomes despite adversity. Using a child resilience measure co-designed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, we investigate: 1) children's personal, family, school and community strengths; 2) gender differences; and 3) associations between resilience and wellbeing.

Methods: 1132 parent/caregivers of children aged 5-12 years were recruited to the Childhood Resilience Study, including through the Aboriginal Families Study. The Aboriginal Families Study is a population-based cohort of 344 mothers of an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander child. This paper focuses on the wave 2 survey data on child resilience at age 5-9 years (n = 231). Resilience was assessed with the Child Resilience Questionnaire-parent/caregiver report (CRQ-P/C), categorised into tertiles of low, moderate and high scores. Child emotional/behavioural wellbeing and mental health competence was assessed with the parent-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. All Tobit regression models adjusted for child age.

Outcomes: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls had higher resilience scores compared to boys (Adj.β = 0·9, 95%CI 0·9-1·4), with higher School Engagement, Friends and Connectedness to language scale scores. Resilience scores were strongly associated with wellbeing and high mental health competence. A higher proportion of girls with low resilience scores had positive wellbeing than did boys (73.3% versus 49.0%). High resilience scores were associated with lower SDQ total difficulties score after adjusting for child age, gender, maternal age and education and family location (major city, regional, remote) (Adj.β = -3.4, 95%CI -5.1, -1.7). Compared to the Childhood Resilience Study sample, Aboriginal Families Study children had higher mean CRQ-P/C scores in the personal and family domains.

Interpretation: High family strengths can support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children at both an individual and cultural level. Boys may benefit from added scaffolding by schools, family and communities to support their social and academic connectedness.

Copyright: © 2024 Gartland et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

Australia
Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
Child
Child, Preschool
Female
Health Services, Indigenous*
Humans
Male
Mental Health
Resilience, Psychological*
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

The Aboriginal Families Study and Childhood Resilience Study were supported by three separate project grants from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) (#104395, #1105561, #1064061). Stephanie Brown is supported by NHMRC Leadership Investigator Grant (L2) #2018144. Arwen Nikolof is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program PhD Scholarship and a top-up scholarship supported by the Royal Children’s Hospital Research Foundation and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Research conducted at the Murdoch Children’s Research institute is supported by the Victorian Government’s Operational Infrastructure program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.