Mental Health Consequences of Adversity in Australia: National Bushfires Associated With Increased Depressive Symptoms, While COVID-19 Pandemic Associated With Increased Symptoms of Anxiety.

Frontiers in Psychology
Hussain-Abdulah ArjmandNikki Rickard

Abstract

High quality monitoring of mental health and well-being over an extended period is essential to understand how communities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and how to best tailor interventions. Multiple community threats may also have cumulative impact on mental health, so examination across several contexts is important. The objective of this study is to report on changes in mental health and well-being in response to the Australian bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic. This study utilized an Experience-Sampling-Method (ESM), using the smartphone-based mood monitoring application, MoodPrism. Participants were prompted once a day to complete a brief survey inquiring about symptoms of depression and anxiety, and several well-being indices, including arousal, emotional valence, self-esteem, motivation, social connectedness, meaning and purpose, and control. Participants were N = 755 Australians (aged 13 years and above) who downloaded and used MoodPrism, between 2018 and 2020. Results showed that anxiety symptoms significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not during the bushfires. This may be explained by concurrent feelings of social connectedness maintained during the bushfires but not during the pandemic. In contrast...Continue Reading

References

Dec 10, 2009·Psychosomatics·Kurt KroenkeBernd Löwe
Nov 16, 2013·PloS One·Stacey M SchaeferRichard J Davidson
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Mar 13, 2020·The Medical Journal of Australia·Nicolas Borchers ArriagadaFay H Johnston
Oct 28, 2020·The Medical Journal of Australia·Jane Rw FisherMaggie Kirkman

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Software Mentioned

PERMA
MoodPrism
R
SPSS
GooglePlay
iOS App

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