Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, people and families experienced a new and sudden situation that forced them to stay in their homes for a long period (February 25- May 26). In this context, many people found themselves in great difficulty, not only because of the fear of contagion or the economic problems deriving from the closure of production activities but also because the virus profoundly changed the way of life in society. The “Social distancing” concept became central in all personal relationships, including close family relationships. In this situation, our paper seeks to understand the role of spirituality and religiosity in reacting to this difficult situation and in particular on the physical and psychological health of the people involved. The data we present here are part of a multidisciplinary research with a quantitative theoretical framework. As the data was collected during the first Italian lockdown, a total of 1,250 adults from all over Italy participated in the on-line questionnaire. Among the main results it emerged that the participants perceived lower levels of spiritual well-being and mental health than the pre-pandemic situation with a significant gender difference; in fact, women perceived lower mental health than men. At the same time, it is evident that spirituality and religious practices are a protective factor connected not only with psychological and mental but also physical health. Finally, it appears evident that the family is a protective factor with respect to mental health, even in a period so full of stress factors, those who did not live alone and especially those who had to take care of small children reported higher perceived mental health and a greater ability to activate coping resources.
Highlights
The catastrophic and unstoppable nature of COVID-19 has produced a series of devastating effects from an economic, social and psychological point of view at a global level
Spiritual Well-Being and General Health: Descriptive Statistics In Table 1, not necessary given the size of the sample, the skewness and kurtosis analyses are reported, which show that there is a normal distribution of the data
Spiritual well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, measured through the Jarel Spiritual Well-Being Scale (JSWB) scale, revealed a sample mean score of 52.64 (SD = 10.33, see Table 1)
Summary
The catastrophic and unstoppable nature of COVID-19 has produced a series of devastating effects from an economic, social and psychological point of view at a global level. Online communities came together to practice recreational, sports and spiritual-religious activities “together.” Yang et al, for example, argue how the use of 360◦ virtual tour offer a tourist experience in a moment in which the directives are to stay at home; this type of activity can, help reduce the stress caused by the pandemic [2] These activities, of a religious nature, made it possible to reduce the physical distances imposed by forced isolation without putting people’s health at risk [3, 4], helping to reduce the negative effects of isolation, in older people [5, 6]. On the one hand the online initiatives managed to mitigate the negative effects of this situation, on the other, the restrictions adopted, while managing to slow down the infection, did not lead to the reduction of deaths, at least in some areas of the world where they continue to be high: today there are 1.18 million victims worldwide, of which 277.135 in Europe alone and the statistics vary considerably day after day [9]
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