A Contemporary Profile of the Mental Health of Girls from Farm and Non-Farm Environments

Background: The mental health of young people has become a public health priority in recent years. Many early symptoms of mental health disorders first appear during adolescence. The aim of this study was to develop a contemporary profile of the mental health of Canadian adolescent girls from farms and determine whether they differed from girls with non-farm backgrounds. Methods: Cross-sectional analyses of an established, school-based survey, the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (2014) were conducted. Study subjects were adolescent girls who reported living or working (n = 1,346) and not living or working (n = 13,158) on a farm and attending schools in rural, small, medium and large/metropolitan centers. Scales examining positive (prosocial behaviour, life satisfaction) and negative (psychological problems, overt risk-taking) mental health indicators were compared between the two groups of girls by grade and community size. Results: Both farm and non-farm girls in upper grades reported lower life satisfaction scores and higher scores for psychological problems and overt risking-taking compared to girls in lower grades. By community size, girls from farms in the most rural schools reported more positive mental health than non-farm girls, with the exception of overt risk-taking, where girls in grades 9-10 from the most rural backgrounds reported markedly higher levels of risk-taking, particularly girls from farms. Conclusions: This study identified differences in mental health of girls from farms as community size increases, with more positive indicators among girls in the most rural communities. However, across all community sizes, overt risk-taking was higher in girls from farms. Thus, it appears that agrarian culture and norms have both protective and negative effects on the mental health of girls from farms.