Social group connections support mental health following wildfire.

Autor: Cruwys T; School of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. tegan.cruwys@anu.edu.au., Macleod E; School of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia., Heffernan T; School of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.; UNSW School of Built Environment, Sydney, Australia., Walker I; School of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.; Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia., Stanley SK; School of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia., Kurz T; School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia., Greenwood LM; School of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia., Evans O; School of Medicine and Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia., Calear AL; Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology [Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol] 2024 Jun; Vol. 59 (6), pp. 957-967. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jul 10.
DOI: 10.1007/s00127-023-02519-8
Abstrakt: Purpose: As environmental disasters become more common and severe due to climate change, there is a growing need for strategies to bolster recovery that are proactive, cost-effective, and which mobilise community resources.
Aims: We propose that building social group connections is a particularly promising strategy for supporting mental health in communities affected by environmental disasters.
Methods: We tested the social identity model of identity change in a disaster context among 627 people substantially affected by the 2019-2020 Australian fires.
Results: We found high levels of post-traumatic stress, strongly related to severity of disaster exposure, but also evidence of psychological resilience. Distress and resilience were weakly positively correlated. Having stronger social group connections pre-disaster was associated with less distress and more resilience 12-18 months after the disaster, via three pathways: greater social identification with the disaster-affected community, greater continuity of social group ties, and greater formation of new social group ties. New group ties were a mixed blessing, positively predicting both resilience and distress.
Conclusions: We conclude that investment in social resources is key to supporting mental health outcomes, not just reactively in the aftermath of disasters, but also proactively in communities most at risk.
(© 2023. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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