This fact sheet provides a high-level overview of findings from the 2022 Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) Parent Survey. This voluntary and anonymous survey of NSW government school parents was open from 4th of February 2022 to 9th February 2022 and was completed by 81,875 school parents.
Have you been using RATs provided by your child or children’s school(s)?
90.5% of respondents have been using the RATs provided by their school
9.5% of respondents have not been using the RATs provided by their school
What is the main reason your child or children used the RATs provided by their school(s)?
Of the 74,066 respondents whose child or children used the RATs provided by their their post-school destinations to inform this fact sheet.
school(s), the main reason they provided was:
- the school asked them to test regularly with RATs (92.8%)
- for other reasons (3.2%)
- their child or children had symptoms (2.3%)
- a close contact had COVID or COVID-like symptoms (1.7%)
Overall, what was your experience using RATs with your school-aged child or children?
Of the 74,066 respondents whose child or children used the RATs provided by their school(s), two-thirds found the experience easy.
What is the main reason you have not used the RATs provided by your child or children’s school?
Of the 7,809 respondents who did not use the RATs provided by their child or
children’s school, the main reason
- they had no symptoms (31.1%)
- they did not think the tests
- they have recently recovered
they provided was: were necessary (23.2%)
from COVID-19 and advised not to test at this time
(17.6%)
- other reasons (6.8%)
- they did not receive RATs from their child or children’s school(s) (6.7%)
- it was too challenging to use or administer (4.7%)
- they used RATs that were not provided by the school (4.5%)
- they are saving the RATs for later use (2.5%)
- their child or children have not attended school yet (2.2%)
- they used PCR testing instead ((0.6%)
