The association between early life access to communication and perceived mental health in a cross-sectional study of deaf Australian adults

Background Deaf people experience worse mental health compared to their hearing counterparts. We aimed to test the association between early life access to communication and perceived mental health among deaf adults in Australia.Methods An online cross-sectional study was conducted with deaf Australians who reported becoming deaf before the age of 5. Logistic regression models were fitted to assess the relationships between types of early life access to communication and self-reported anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and general mental health. Models were minimally adjusted for education and gender or fully adjusted for education, gender, and all communication access variables.Results Survey data from 340 participants were analysed. The survey was open to all deaf Australians over the age of 18 years who became deaf before the age of 5 years. The majority (>85%) of participants were sign language users. Fully adjusted models indicated that deaf participants who attended mainstream primary schools without deaf facilities had significantly higher odds of suicidal ideation compared to those who attended a deaf school (OR for mainstream primary school without a deaf facility: 5.08, 95% CI:2.04–12.67). Similarly, suicidal ideation was greater for those who attended a mainstream school with a deaf facility compared to a deaf school (OR for mainstream primary school with a deaf facility 4.03, 95% CI: 1.39–11.65). Not feeling included in family conversations was also associated with higher odds of anxiety (OR 2.44, 95% CI: 1.06–5.62) and general mental health outcomes (OR 2.76, 95% CI: 1.47–5.18).Conclusions These findings highlight the need for improved early communication access and inclusive practices in both educational and familial settings and greater access to deaf spaces to support mental well-being in deaf individuals. Future research should explore causal mechanisms to inform targeted interventions for sign language users and whether the results differ if more people who use spoken language to communicate were participants.