Depressive symptoms in response to COVID-19 and lockdown: a cross-sectional study on the Italian population

Marco Delmastro,Giorgia Zamariola

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-79850-6

Marco Delmastro, Giorgia Zamariola

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79850-6

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Dec 1, 2020
Citations: 69	License type: open-access

Affiliation: University of Bologna

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown orders adopted to prevent the spread of the disease had a huge impact on a personal, social, and economic level for the world population. In Europe, Italy was one of the frontrunner countries dealing with an emergency that significantly affected people’s lives. Previous research on the psychological impact of the pandemic revealed an increase in anxiety, depression, and feelings of distress; however, these studies were conducted on non-representative samples of the population reached through social media channels, a method that is likely to lead to many forms of statistical and methodological bias. For the first time to our knowledge, we assessed the psychological impact of COVID-19 on 6700 Italian individuals, representative of the Italian population in terms of age, gender, and geographical areas revealing higher scores of depressive symptoms in females, younger adults, people reporting professional uncertainty and lower socio-economic status. A positive correlation was also found for individuals living alone, those who could not leave home for going to work, and people with a case of COVID-19 in the family, whereas the region of residence was not a significant predictor of depressive symptoms. These findings underline the importance of considering the psychological effects of COVID-19 and providing support to individuals seeking mental health care.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown orders adopted to prevent the spread of the disease had a huge impact on a personal, social, and economic level for the world population
We focused on young adults [16–24] and adults (25+) so as to proceed with a self-administered questionnaire that was completed by the sampled respondents
The first step was to analyse the distribution of the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ) score among Italian population, just after the lockdown period, i.e., in June 2020

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown orders adopted to prevent the spread of the disease had a huge impact on a personal, social, and economic level for the world population. After China, Italy was the first European country to report a case of death due to COVID-19 dated on 21 February 2020 in Lombardy, followed by a series of outbreaks in the Northern regions and a rapid increase of deaths and cases of infection In response to this emergency, Italy was the first country in Europe to adopt restrictive physical and social distancing measures to limit the spread of the disease which led to a full lockdown of the entire country from 9 March 2020 until 3 May 2020 (so-called “phase 1”), and other measures, such as the prohibition of individual movements outside people’s region of domicile, until 2 June (“phase 2”; for more information see COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor). While previous research adopted a convenient sampling strategy administering the questionnaire through social media channels and snowballing technique, our study relied on a random and representative sample which avoids recruitment bias (i.e., sample selection, biases in statistical results)

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