Counting Carers: Are You a Hidden Mental Health Carer in Australia?

1) Do you find yourself constantly thinking about the welfare of someone in your life as a result of their mental health?

1. Yes
2. Sometimes (meaning alternating between periods when you do and then periods when you do not).
3. No

2) Does this person struggle to perform daily living tasks?

1. Yes
2. Some of them
3. No

1. Is this person able to maintain normal relationships with others and/or employment?

1. Yes
2. Some of them
3. No

1. Do you provide support, assistance, help or care to this person:
   1. On a regular basis
   2. Irregularly, but intensely at times
   3. Never

Examples of providing support, assistance, help or care include;

• bathing, toileting, feeding,
• helping in moving around, helping to understand or be understood,
• emotional support,
• supervising medication or dressing wounds,
• cleaning duties, performing housework,
• managing finances, and
• driving or accompanying someone to appointments.

1. When you need to decide whether or not to do some activity or to plan your time, do you find your mind first turning to the possible effects on the person you support and when, were and how you will fit everything in around their needs?
   1.  Yes
   2. Sometimes
   3. No

1. Do you find yourself contacting the person you support regularly to check their welfare and to see how they are coping?
   1. Yes
   2. Sometimes
   3. No

7) Would you say that your work or social life has been negatively affected by the amount of time you spending assisting, helping or caring for the person you support?

1. Yes
2. No
3. I don’t know

8) Is it fair to say that you defer your own needs or goals to assist in helping them?

1. Yes
2. Sometimes
3. No

9) Does the person you support have particular areas or issues that they do not seem able to deal with?

1. Yes
2. Just one
3. No

10) Do you provide support for someone who in more ‘usual’ or common circumstances would be providing support to you?

1. Yes
2. Sometimes
3. No

11) Do you regularly have to deal with third parties (employers, service providers, law enforcement, council, shops etc) on behalf of the person you support (other than because of difficulty with English)?

1. Yes
2. Sometimes
3. No

12) Do you regularly take time off work or change major plans of your own in order to be able to better assist the person you support?

1. Yes
2. Sometimes
3. No

What your answers mean;

Mainly ‘A’– you are highly likely to be a very important carer for the person you support, possibly even the ‘primary carer’

Mainly ‘B’– you are probably one of a number of carers for the person you support, possibly a casual carer of someone who is only periodically effected by their illness

Mainly ‘C’– you probably are not a ‘carer’ of the person you support – more like a good friend (although emotional support is very important)