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

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, depressive symptoms increased significantly during the bushfires, which maintained during the pandemic. Most indices of well-being decreased significantly during the bushfires, and further again during the pandemic. Study findings highlight the unique responses to the bushfire and COVID-19 crises, revealing specific areas of resilience and vulnerability. Such information can help inform the development of public health interventions or individual clinical treatment, to improve treatment approaches and preparedness for potential future community disasters.

A Systematic Review of the Impact of Wildfires on Sleep Disturbances

“…Furthermore, the lack of social support and community belonging moderated the relationship between trauma and sleep disorders [ 13 ]. Notably, a recent study confirmed the importance of social interaction and how this has changed as a result of COVID-19 compromising mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety [ 63 ]. This is reflective of the impact of collective trauma, referred to earlier in this review [ 11 ].…”

The Symbiosis of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy and Telemental Health: A Review

“…Sleep quality declined globally (Gupta et al, 2020;Pérez-Carbonell et al, 2020). People stayed inside under a relentless assault of bad news: police brutality and widespread civil unrest (Taylor, 2021), months-long and devastating wildfires (Arjmand et al, 2021), chronic resource shortages and skirmishes over toilet paper (Labad et al, 2021), reports of giant invasive hornets (Higgins, 2020), announcement of unavoidable climate consequences (McGrath, 2021), and mounting evidence that our online social lives have been manipulated with harmful intent (Hatmaker, 2021;Ortutay, 2021). The state of the world, apparently, keeps getting worse.…”

Schooling upheaval during COVID-19: troubling consequences for students’ return to school

“…The ‘Black Summer’ bushfires were responsible for the direct deaths of 33 people and the indirect deaths of more than 450 people who died due to smoke inhalation (Bradstock et al, 2021 ; Cook et al, 2021 ; Hitch, 2020 ). With more than a billion animals killed and 18.6 million hectares of land burnt, the Australian public, including school aged-children, entered the COVID-19 pandemic with significantly increased rates of depression and concern about the future (Arjmand et al, 2021 ). The closure of schools, with its loss of connection, emotional support, and stability for children and families (Brown et al, 2020 ) was, therefore, part of a cumulatively stressful period for the nation.…”