High quality monitoring of mental health and wellbeing 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 wellbeing in response to the Australian bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic. This study utilised 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 wellbeing 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 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 wellbeing 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 be leveraged for development of public health interventions or individual clinical treatment, to improve treatment approaches and preparedness for potential future community disasters.

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚逆境对心理健康的影响：全国森林大火与抑郁症状增加相关，而COVID-19大流行与焦虑症状增加相关

对于了解社区如何应对COVID-19大流行以及如何最好地制定干预措施，长期监控精神健康状况至关重要。多种社区威胁也可能对心理健康产生累积影响，因此，在多种情况下进行检查很重要。这项研究的目的是报告因澳大利亚丛林大火和COVID-19大流行而引起的心理健康和福祉变化。这项研究利用基于智能手机的情绪监控应用程序MoodPrism的体验采样方法（ESM）。每天一次，要求参与者完成简短的调查，以调查抑郁症和焦虑症的症状，以及一些健康指数，包括唤醒，情绪效价，自尊，动机，社交联系，意义和目的以及控制力。参与者是N = 755澳大利亚人（13岁及13岁以上），他们在2018年至2020年之间下载并使用了MoodPrism。结果显示，在COVID-19大流行期间，焦虑症状显着增加，但在丛林大火中却没有。这可以通过在森林大火期间但在大流行期间没有同时保持的社会联系感来解释。相反，在大火期间维持的丛林大火期间，抑郁症状显着增加。在丛林大火期间，大多数福祉指数均显着下降，在大流行期间再次下降。研究结果强调了对森林大火和COVID-19危机的独特反应，揭示了复原力和脆弱性的特定领域。此类信息可用于开发公共卫生干预措施或个体临床治疗方法，