Usage of Social Media and Smartphone Application in Assessment of Physical and Psychological Well-Being of Individuals in Times of a Major Air Pollution Crisis

Zhang, Melvyn WB; Ho, Cyrus SH; Fang, Pan; Lu, Yanxia; Ho, Roger CM

In addition, the respondents reported a mean number of 4.03 physical symptoms (SD 2.6) and the total IES-R score was 18.47 (SD 11.69). The five most common physical symptoms among the 298 participants included mouth or throat discomfort (205/298, 68.8%), nose discomfort (183/298, 61.4%), eye discomfort (181/298, 60.7%), headache (149/298, 50.3%), and breathing difficulty (120/298, 40.3%). For the psychological impact, the mean intrusion score (mean 0.96, SD 0.63) was the highest, followed by mean hyperarousal score (mean 0.85, SD 0.74), and the mean avoidance score (mean 0.71, SD 0.5) was the lowest. When comparing the responses between male and female participants, 97.7% of the women were more likely to report usefulness of the N-95 mask (χ2 1=7.353, P=.007) and 66.3% of the women also reported the presence of eye discomfort (χ2 1=5.718, P=.017). There were no significant differences between men and women in demographics variables and scores on psychological impact. Respondents were further classified into two groups based on the perceived dangerous PSI value. Respondents who perceived lower PSI value (<250) as dangerous were more likely to come from other ethnic groups (χ2 1=9.487, P=.002); report the presence of mouth or throat discomfort (χ2 1=10.236, P=.001), nausea or vomiting (χ2 1= 5.697, P=.017), higher number of physical symptoms (t 296=2.522, P=.012), higher mean intrusion score (t 296= 2.198, P=.029), higher mean hyperarousal score (t 296=2.488, P=.013), higher total mean IES-R score (t 296=1.990, P=.047), and higher total IES-R score (t 296=1.990, P=.047).