Participant demographics

Demographic characteristics from VSTR included age at injury, sex, preferred language, education, work status and occupation pre-injury, and neighbourhood characteristics based on residential postcode at the time of injury. Highest level of education (university, high school, advanced diploma, did not complete high school) was classified in accordance with the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) [19]. Occupation skill level was classified in accordance with the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO) [20]. Occupational skill levels were categorised into six occupation levels: managers and professionals; associate professionals; tradespersons and advanced clerical workers; intermediate sales, clerical, service, production, and transport workers; and elementary sales, clerical, or service workers and labourers.

The Index of Relative Socioeconomic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) deciles [21] classify neighbourhood socioeconomic position based on national census data on the typical family structure, employment and education level within each postcode region. Victorian ranked IRSAD deciles were summarised into quintiles ranging from one (most disadvantaged) to five (least disadvantaged). The Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) (Department of Health and Aged Care, 2001) classifies regions in Australia into five levels of remoteness (major cities, inner regional, outer regional, remote, very remote), which were summarised as major cities versus regional and remote areas due to the small number of remote regions in Victoria.