Integrating and extending cohort studies: lessons from the eXtending Treatments, Education and Networks in Depression (xTEND) study

Table 3 Comparability of Australian Rural Mental Health Study (ARMHS) and Hunter Community Study (HCS) measures/samples at baseline and common follow-up

Measure	Baseline	Follow-up
Demographics
Age	I	I
Gender	I	I
Education	LI	LI
Marital status	LI	LI
Retirement status	LI	LI
Employment status	LI	LI
Social support/capital
Personal & network support	S	I
Sense of place (Environmental distress scale)	M	I
Family support	M	I
Psychological distress
Kessler 10 (K-10)	I	I
Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) - Depression	M	I
Depressive symptomatology (CES-D)	M	I
Suicidal ideation	M	I
Solastalgia (Environmental distress scale)	I	I
Self-reported quality of life (AQoL-6D)	I^{^}	I
Personal hopefulness (HOPES-12)	M	I
Neuroticism (Brief Eysenck scale)	M	I
Physical illness and well being
Body Mass Index (BMI)	S	I
Chronic illness	LI	LI
Adverse life events	M	I
Alcohol use	M	I
Current smoking	LI	LI
Satisfaction with life	M	I
Physical and mental wellbeing (SF-36)	M	I
Contextual effects ^#
Remoteness and SEIFA (postal code)	I	I
% rural employment, % land use for agriculture, and % population change (LGA)	I	I
Social capital and Health service accessibility (regional)	I	.

Note: I, Ideal circumstances for data combination; LI, Less than ideal circumstances for data combination (e.g., data re-coding required); S, Statistical intervention required for data combination; M, Missing from one sample or measures not comparable; ^{^} One subscale was missing from AQoL-6D at ARMHS baseline and imputation was required. ^# Contextual measures were derived using postal code information, from which indices at the relevant level of aggregation could be geocoded; SEIFA, Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas; LGA, Local government area.

ISSN: 1471-2288