A descriptive study of the participation of children and adolescents in activities outside school

BMC Pediatrics

Table 1 Participant demographics

	Proportions in study sample compared to population data
	Study sample (n = (%))	Victorian population (%)	p-value ^a
Gender
Male	215 (50.9)	52	0.67
Female	207 (49.1)	48
Language ^b
English	280 (82.1)	84.1	0.32
Other	61 (17.9)	15.9
School type ^c
Government	276 (65.9)	62.8	<0.001
Catholic	125 (29.8)	22.7
Independent	18 (4.3)	14.5
Metropolitan	331 (78.4) ^c	71	<0.001
Rural	88 (20.9)	29
SEIFA score	Mean: 1049.8; SD: 87.2	Mean: 1000.0; SD: 100.0	<0.01 ^d
Age groups	Proportion of children in each age group in study sample
Age groups	Female ^e	Male ^e	Total ^e
6 year-olds	16	17	33
7 year-olds	19	20	39
8 year-olds	18	23	41
9 year-olds	19	20	39
10 year-olds	19	14	33
11 year-olds	29	29	58
12 year-olds	28	20	48
13 year-olds	19	16	35
14 year-olds	19	18	37
15 year-olds	8	8	16
16 year-olds	8	11	19
17 year-olds	9	7	16
18 year-olds	4	4	8

^a statistical differences between study group and state population (from Victorian summary statistics, where p ≥ 0.05 indicates that the groups have similar distributions for the variables (determined using chi-squared statistics); ^b language spoken at home - n = 81 missing data; ^c n = 3 missing data; ^d the distribution of SEIFA scores for the study participants and the State population data were compared using a One-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test; ^e indicates number in each age group for male and female children and the total number. F = female; M = male; SD = standard deviation; SEIFA = Socio-Economic Index for Area

ISSN: 1471-2431