Are Italian youngsters adequately equipped for an after-pandemic upswing? Luigi Bollani University of Turin, Italy Simone Di Zio University of Chieti-Pescara G. D'Annunzio, Italy Luigi Fabbris Tolomeo studi e ricerche, Padua, Italy This is a section of ASA 2022 Data-Driven Decision Making(DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3) by Enrico di Bella, Luigi Fabbris, Corrado Lagazio Firenze University Press Firenze 2023 https://doi.org/10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3.07

Available for academic research purposes

Open Access

Copyright Author(s)

Content licence CC BY 4.0

Metadata licence CC0 1.0

This is original content, published for academic research purposes

 Digital edition XML powered by Booksflow

Are Italian youngsters adequately equipped for an after-pandemic upswing?All over the world young people seem to be particularly dazed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, they were touched just lightly by the disease, though the isolation due to the distancing need and the remote learning mode may be the sources of depressive ailments and other psychological distresses. In this paper we analyse the data collected through a survey conducted in the second half of 2021 among a convenience sample of Italian adults. The survey was aimed at highlighting how Italians experienced the pandemic and the way they perceived their futures. About one third of the sample was below 35 and we consider them the young. Most of them were students, a few worked, some were looking for a job. The analysis of the collected data shows that so many young Italians were disturbed by the pandemic, even though the sanitary impact of the disease on them was much less relevant than other age classes. Among the youngsters, the depression and anxiety rates was significantly higher than other adults, the perception of a future role was limited to them and their potential resources for future life was also jeopardized. The possible causes of the reduction capacity among young adults was scouted through a multivariate statistical analysis. It showed that the perception of personal difficulties is correlated to a feeling of uncertainty for their future roles, to a pressure over their social-economical and personal resources to face their future and to a sort of apathy that could limit their pro-activeness.

 Youngsters Depression Future Apathy Proactive

It is available online at https://doi.org/10.36253/979-12-215-0106-3.07

References Barrafrem, K., Västfjäll, D., Tinghög, G. (2020). Financial well-being, COVID-19, and the financial better-than-average-effect. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 28: 10041 Beck, A. T., Weissman, A., Lester, D., Trexler, L. (1974). The measurement of pessimism: The Hopelessness Scale. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42(6): 861–865 Chadi, N., Castellanos Ryan, N., Geofroy, M.-C. (2022). COVID-19 and the impacts on youth mental health: Emerging evidence from longitudinal studies. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 113: 44–52 Commodari, E., La Rosa, V.L. (2020). Adolescents in quarantine during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: Perceived health risk, beliefs, psychological experiences and expectations for the future. Frontiers in Psychology, 11: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.559951. Connor, K.M. Davidson, R.T. (2003). Development of a new resilience scale: The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), Depression and Anxiety, 18: 76–82 Esposito, S., Giannitto, N., Squarcia, A., Neglia, C., Argentiero, A., Minichetti, P., Cotugno, N., Principi, N. (2021). Development of psychological problems among adolescents during school closures because of the COVID-19 lockdown phase in Italy: A cros Ettman, C.K., Abdalla, S.M., Cohen, G.H., Sampson, L., Vivier, P.M., Galea, S. (2020). Prevalence of depression symptoms in US adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, 3(9): e2019686 Eurofound (2021). Living, Working and COVID-19 (Update April 2021): Mental Health and Trust Decline across EU as Pandemic Enters Another Year. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union Higuchi, S., Mihara,, S., Kitayuguchi, T., Miyakoshi, H., Ooi, M., Maezono, M., Nishimura, K., Matsuzaki, T. (2020). Prolonged use of Internet and gaming among treatment seekers arising out of social restrictions related to COVID-19 pandemic. Psychiatry a Hosmer, D.W., Lemeshow, S. (2000). Applied Logistic Regression (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons Liang, L., Ren, H., Cao, R., Hu, Y., Qin, Z., Li, C., Me, S. (2020). The effect of COVID-19 on youth mental health. Psychiatric Quarterly, 91: 841–852 Mazzotti, E., Fassone, G., Picardi, A., Sagoni, E., Ramieri, L., Lega, I., Camaioni, D., Abeni, D., Pasquini, P. (2003). II Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) per lo screening dei disturbi psichiatrici: Uno studio di validazione nei confronti della Interv Mental Health Commission of Canada (2020). LOCKDOWN LIFE: Mental Health Impacts of COVID-19 on Youth in Canada. Ottawa, Canada Muzi, S., Sansò, A., Pace, C.S. (2021). What's happened to Italian adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic? A preliminary study on symptoms, problematic social media usage, and attachment: Relationships and differences with pre-pandemic peers. Frontiers 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.590543 Power, E., Hughes, S., Cotter, D., Cannon, M. (2020). Youth mental health in the time of COVID-19. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 37: 301–305 Rania, N. Coppola, I. (2022). The fear of contagion and the attitude toward the restrictive measures imposed to face COVID-19 in Italy: The psychological consequences caused by the pandemic one year after it began. Frontiers of Psychology, 13: 805706 R Core Team (2022). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, AT (http:/www.R-project.org, accessed 26 June 2022) Renaud-Charest, O., Lui, L.M.W., Eskander, S., Ceban, F., Ho, R., Di Vincenzo, J.D., Rosenblat, J.D., Lee, Y., Subramaniapillai, M., McIntyre, R.S. (2021). Onset and frequency of depression in post-COVID-19 syndrome: A systematic review. Journal of Psychi Rupprecht, F.S., Martin, K., Kamin, S.T., Lang, F.R. (2022). COVID-19 and perceiving finitude: Associations with future time perspective, death anxiety, and ideal life expectancy. Psychology and Aging, 37(2), 260–271 Shuster, A., O’Brien, M., Luo, Y, Berner, L.A., Perl, O., Heflin, M., Kulkarni, K., Chung, D., Na, S., Fiore, V.G., Gu, X. (2021). Emotional adaptation during a crisis: Decline in anxiety and depression after the initial weeks of COVID-19 in the United St Spitzer, R.L., Kroenke, K., Williams, J.B. (1999). Validation and utility of a self-report version of PRIME-MD: the PHQ Primary Care study. Journal of the American Medical Association, 282(18): 1737-1744 Steele, H., (2020). COVID-19, fear and the future: An attachment perspective. Clinical Neuropsychiatry, 17(2): 97-99 Xiang, Y.T., Yu, X., Ungvari, G.S., Correl, C.U., Chiu, H.F. (2014). Outcomes of SARS survivors in China: not only physical and psychiatric co-morbidities. East Asian Archives of Psychiatry, 24: 37–38