A Community Based Disaster Mental Health Intervention (CBDMHI) Adapted for Rural Australian Communities

Abstract

This is a mixed method data set for two studies that made up a PhD thesis. For the first study participants were 13 Australian adults who were residing within a small rural community in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales at the time of the 2019-2020 bushfires. Data were collected approximately 3 years after the 2019-2020 bushfires. Semi-structured interviews took place in person at a café in the local community, with one interview conducted via telephone. The interviews were audio-recorded, and the recordings were transcribed verbatim. Participants were randomly assigned pseudonyms, and any potentially identifying information was removed from the transcripts. The data is the de-identified transcripts that were used for the thematic analysis. The data set supported the research as through the thematic analysis the community's bushfire recovery needs were identified. <br><br>

The second study consisted of 9 participants. Participants were eligible for the second study if they were: a) persons age 18 years and over, b) who self-identified as a member of the bushfire-affected community in the Northern Tablelands region of NSW, c) had lived and worked in the community during the fires and continued to reside within the bushfire affected community, and d) reported having been directly or indirectly impacted by the 2019-2020 bushfires. This study used a mixed-methods design where both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and given equal priority for interpretation. This research was a pilot of an intervention and used a pre-test/post-test design to assess levels of psychological distress, resilience, coping, community cohesion, psychological preparedness, and help-seeking intentions. Participants completed the measures before and after the intervention, as well as a 6-week follow-up. Intervention participation and thus treatment implementation was a within-subjects design, with participants acting as their own controls. Participants also engaged in a brief semi-structured interviews at approximately 4 weeks after the intervention to assess acceptability of the program. The data is the excel spreadsheet with the original data as well as the SPSS file that the analysis used. The data is also the de-identified transcripts. The data supported the research as it assessed acceptability and feasibility of an intervention (the community based disaster mental health intervention) in a rural Australian bushfire community.