Originally Posted by
Foxxster
Attempted suicide rates among Victorian teenagers have skyrocketed by 184 per cent in the past six months.
Disturbing new data from the Kids Helpline revealed the shocking statistic after Victoria was plunged into its fourth major Covid-19 lockdown in the past 12 months.
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...4750a0391b0653
As is pretty typical these days when you find the
primary source reporting you'll see that it does not match the subsequent secondary reporting in the media.
There most assuredly has not been a 184 percent increase in attempted suicide rates among Victorian teenagers at all. The 184 percent increase in Victoria was for '
duty of care interventions enacted by Kids Helpline on behalf of children and young people'. For starters, 'children and young people' is not just teenagers; it covers those aged between 5-25. As noted in the primary report, '75% of emergency interventions were for young people aged 13-18'.
Further 'duty of care interventions' includes but is not limited to emergency interventions relating to child abuse (these made up 31 percent of the interventions in Victoria) as well as interventions in response to an immediate intent to enact suicide (44 percent).
What the primary reporting does show is that there is a disparity between Victoria, and Queensland and New South Wales, with regards to the increase in duty of care interventions enacted over the six months from 1 December 2020 – 31 May 2021. During the six months covered Victoria had two lockdowns, their third and fourth, between 12-17 February and 27 May - 10 June (note that this lockdown just fell into the reporting period so its impact would be questionable). During the same period Queensland also had two shorter lockdowns, their second and third, between 8-11 January and 29 March - 1 April. New South Wales had no lockdowns during the period covered by the report but saw a not dissimilar increase in duty of care interventions to Queensland, up by 40 percent compared to Queensland's 46 percent increase.
Sitting below the reporting is of course the data and we don't seem to have access to that. A persistent concern with the Kids Helpline data is that they have a very low Call Answer Rate, typically less than 50 percent. When doing any form of comparative analysis on a state-by-state basis you would want to be satisfied that there wasn't biasing in the calls answered/abandoned by state.