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Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
A cross-sectional investigation of the mental health and wellbeing among individuals who have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 international border closure in Australia
Globalization and Health, Vol.18, pp.1-10
2022
PMID: 35135575
Appears in COVID-19 Research
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the Australian government implementing strict international border closures. However, research has not yet investigated the mental health status of individuals impacted negatively by these international border closures.
The present study was a cross-sectional online survey of 3968 adults who reported being negatively affected by the border closure during June and July 2021. Psychological distress was measured with the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), stress with the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and wellbeing with the Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF).
In total, 3968 participants reported being negatively affected by the current restrictions (63.4% in Australia, 36.6% overseas). The vast majority of respondents (83.6%) reported high or very high levels of psychological distress (mean K10 score > 22), and 74.8% reported poor mental wellbeing, with similar risk profiles for participants in Australia or overseas. The most common scenarios of affected individuals included 1) wanting to enter Australia (30.8%), 2) wanting to leave Australia (29.6%) and 3) wanting someone to enter Australia (25.6%). Reasons included wanting to be with partners, family and friends (81.1%), for employment/economic reasons (4.9%), study (4.1%), personal safety/health (2.6%) or holiday (1.4%). While psychological distress was extremely high across all groups, separated partners and those with interrupted study experienced the highest distress (mean K10 = 35.7, n = 155).
The data suggests a highly elevated mental health risk profile among individuals who report being negatively affected by current Australian international border closures. The results provide valuable data to inform future policy decisions and have clear implications regarding effective service provision for this vulnerable group.
Details
- Title
- A cross-sectional investigation of the mental health and wellbeing among individuals who have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 international border closure in Australia
- Authors
- Kathina Ali (Corresponding Author) - Flinders UniversityMatthew Iasiello (Author) - South Australian Health and Medical Research InstituteJoep van Agteren (Author) - Flinders UniversityTeri Mavrangelos (Author) - Flinders UniversityMichael Kyrios (Author) - Flinders UniversityDaniel B Fassnacht (Author) - Flinders University
- Publication details
- Globalization and Health, Vol.18, pp.1-10
- Publisher
- BioMed Central Ltd.
- Date published
- 2022
- DOI
- 10.1186/s12992-022-00807-7
- ISSN
- 1744-8603
- PMID
- 35135575
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Health - Psychology
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99726819502621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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