Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a complete lockdown in many countries and Italy was the first country interested in Europe, as the cases spread very quickly with a high rate of mortality. While the lockdown strategy is an essential step to curb the exponential rise of COVID-19 cases, it can have a significative impact on mental health on the population involved, that is still not well known and must be explored. The objective of the present research is to investigate the Quality of Life (QoL) and Symptoms of PTSD (PTSS) encountered during the quarantine period (April 2020) due to the spread of COVID-19 in Italy. Participants (N = 1839; 1430 females and 409 males), who were volunteers and anonymous, adults (18–73 years), were drawn from a convenience sample of the general population and asked to fill out an online questionnaire, after giving an informed written consent. The General Health Questionnaire (GH12), used to assess health related QoL, identified 24.5% of respondents as problematic, and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), used to assess PTSS, identified the 23.5% with clinical scores. Results showed that married people/cohabitants, non-workers, and those with a lower level of education perceived a better QoL and less PTSS. The most frequent emotions felt during the first month of quarantine and referred to by participants were sadness (72%), boredom (54.5%), impotence (52%), and anxiety (50%). The COVID-19 pandemic represents one of the most stressful events in recent times worldwide and poses a major challenge for social, economic, and, above all, psychological resources of the population that must be assessed and supported if insufficient.
Highlights
Accepted: 15 April 2021COVID-19, or Corona Virus Disease 19, the acute respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was officially identified on 31 December 2019 in the city of Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province, in China
Results from the regression on the GH12 showed that people with higher education, people who were working during the quarantine, and people with a higher number of working hours declared worse Quality of Life (QoL) perceptions
Another study [32] suggested that demographic factors such age and education, were not associated with psychological outcomes. Workers and those spending more hours working reported more problems in their quality of life, probably due to the higher risk of being affected by COVID-19 if they needed to go out and, or, for those who kept working at home, due to a difficult adaptation to smart working, which was a big issue on the account of its novelty in Italy
Summary
Accepted: 15 April 2021COVID-19, or Corona Virus Disease 19, the acute respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was officially identified on 31 December 2019 in the city of Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province, in China. Between 21 and 22 February the first infections were recorded in Italy, located in some towns of the Lodi area in Lombardy and in the Paduan area of Vo’ Euganeo (Veneto, Italy). In response to these events, the first Italian decree was passed to counter the effects of the coronavirus in the hope of being able to keep the spread of the disease under control. At the beginning of March, the infections in Italy rose to more than 3000 cases, leading to the enactment of a new provision that sanctioned the closure of the main meeting places, including schools, universities, cinemas, theatres, and stadiums, and the recommendation to implement in all possible cases smart working and to drastically reduce all social contacts, keeping a safety distance of at least 1 m. On 11 March 2020, the WHO declared that a pandemic was in effect
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