Background

The MindSpot Clinic provides services to Australians with anxiety and depression. Routine data collection means that MindSpot has been able to monitor trends in mental health symptoms and service use prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and these have been reported in two earlier studies. This third study describes user characteristics and volumes in the first 8 months of COVID-19, including a comparison between users from states and territories with significantly different COVID-19 infection rates.

Methods

We examined trends in demographics and symptoms for participants starting an online assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic, from March to October 2020. Participants from the state of Victoria (n = 4203), which experienced a significantly larger rate of COVID-19 infections relative to the rest of Australia, were compared to participants from the rest of Australia (n = 10,500). Results were also compared to a baseline “comparison period” prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results

A total of 14,703 people started a mental health assessment with MindSpot between 19th March and 28th October 2020. We observed two peaks in service demand, one in the early weeks of the pandemic, and the second in August–September when COVID-19 transmission was high in Victoria. Mean symptom scores on standardised measures of distress (K-10), depression (PHQ-9) and anxiety (GAD-7) were lower during this second peak in service demand, but there were significantly higher levels of concern about COVID-19 in participants from Victoria, and a higher proportion of Victorian respondents reported that they had made significant changes in response to the pandemic. Many respondents reported changes to their mental health, such as increased feelings of worry. Most respondents reported implementing strategies to help manage the psychological impact of COVID-19, such as maintaining social connections and limiting exposure to news or social media.

Conclusions

We did not observe increased levels of clinical anxiety or depression on standardised symptom measures. However, there were increases in service demand, and increased levels of concern and difficulties related to COVID-19, particularly in Victoria. Encouragingly, a significant proportion of participants have implemented coping strategies. These results continue to suggest that the mental health impacts of COVID-19 represent a normal response to an abnormal situation rather than an emerging mental health crisis. This distinction is important as we develop individually appropriate and proportional mental health system responses.

中文翻译：

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快速报告 3：澳大利亚数字心理健康服务用户在 COVID-19 的前 8 个月内的心理健康症状、特征和区域差异

背景

MindSpot 诊所为患有焦虑症和抑郁症的澳大利亚人提供服务。常规数据收集意味着 MindSpot 能够在 COVID-19 大流行之前和期间监测心理健康症状和服务使用的趋势，这些已在两项较早的研究中得到报告。第三项研究描述了 COVID-19 前 8 个月的用户特征和数量，包括对 COVID-19 感染率显着不同的州和地区的用户进行比较。

方法

我们检查了从 2020 年 3 月到 2020 年 10 月在 COVID-19 大流行期间开始在线评估的参与者的人口统计和症状趋势。来自维多利亚州的参与者 (n = 4203)，其 COVID-19 感染率相对较高与澳大利亚其他地区的参与者（n = 10,500）进行了比较。还将结果与 COVID-19 大流行之前的基线“比较期”进行了比较。

结果

在 2020 年 3 月 19 日至 10 月 28 日期间，共有 14,703 人开始使用 MindSpot 进行心理健康评估。我们观察到服务需求出现两个高峰，一个是在大流行的最初几周，另一个是在 8 月至 9 月 COVID-19 传播时在维多利亚高。在服务需求的第二次高峰期间，对痛苦 (K-10)、抑郁症 (PHQ-9) 和焦虑症 (GAD-7) 标准化测量的平均症状评分较低，但对 COVID-19 的担忧程度明显更高维多利亚州的参与者和更高比例的维多利亚州受访者表示，他们为应对大流行做出了重大改变。许多受访者报告说他们的心理健康发生了变化，例如担忧情绪增加。

结论

我们没有观察到标准化症状测量的临床焦虑或抑郁水平增加。然而，服务需求有所增加，与 COVID-19 相关的担忧和困难也有所增加，尤其是在维多利亚州。令人鼓舞的是，很大一部分参与者已经实施了应对策略。这些结果继续表明，COVID-19 对心理健康的影响代表了对异常情况的正常反应，而不是新出现的心理健康危机。这种区别很重要，因为我们制定了个人适当和成比例的心理健康系统反应。