It is important to maintain and boost our mental health and wellbeing right from the beginning, starting in early childhood. The Gatt Wellbeing & Resilience Group have created a wellbeing scale for adults called the COMPAS‑W Wellbeing Scale, and have now created a version for children aged 5 to 12 years of age called COMPAS-KIDS. The reliability of this new scale will be validated with parent reports of their children using the COMPAS-PARENTS wellbeing scale.

These scales are currently being tested and validated in the general community via social media outlets and via direct invitation to families who visit community health clinics across the South West Local Health Districts. The study is open to children aged 5 to 12 years and their parents eligible and willing to participate in the study. Each participant is assessed on two occasions over the duration of their involvement in the study, and each assessment includes the COMPAS scales, plus other mental health measures at baseline and 1‑month follow-up. Upon validation, the scale will be used to understand the predictors of wellbeing and resilience throughout development.

For more information about the study, click here.

Team members and Funding:

Investigators on the project include A/​Prof Justine Gatt (Lead) and Ms Janine Lam (PhD student) from the Gatt Wellbeing & Resilience Group at NeuRA. The clinical team supporting recruitment at the community clinics includes A/​Prof Shanti Raman (Director, Community Paediatrics, Liverpool Hospital), Kate Short (Senior Speech Pathologist, Liverpool Hospital), Prof Valsamma Eapen (Chair, Infant Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, UNSW), and Dr Antonio Mendoza Diaz (Senior Research Officer, UNSW, SWSLHD).

Related publications:

Data collection in progress.