Sea swimming and snorkeling in tropical coastal blue spaces and mental well-being: Findings from Indonesian island communities during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has considerable mental health impacts. Immersive nature-based interventions, such as swimming or snorkeling, may help mitigate the global mental health crisis caused by the pandemic. To investigate this, we collected cross-sectional data from residents of coastal villages (n = 308) in Kepulauan Selayar, Indonesia. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used with mental well-being as the outcome variable, operationalized as the Mental Component Summary (MCS) scores from the SF-12 (12-item Short Form Health Survey). After adjusting for covariates, the activity of sea swimming or snorkeling was found to be significantly associated with better mental well-being (η2 = 0.036; p