The Cognitive Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Members of the General Population in Italy: A Preliminary Study on Executive Inhibition.

Francesca Favieri,Jasmine Giovannoli,Renata Tambelli,Viviana Langher,Francesca Agostini,Giuseppe Forte,Anna Giannini,Maria Casagrande,Enrico Di Pace,Mariella Pazzaglia

doi:10.3390/jcm11010170

Francesca Favieri, Jasmine Giovannoli + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm11010170

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Abstract

The pandemic period which has characterized the last two years has been associated with increasingly worsening psychological conditions, and previous studies have reported severe levels of anxiety, mood disorder, and psychopathological alteration in the general population. In particular, worldwide populations have appeared to present post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Surprisingly, no studies have evaluated the effect of COVID-related PTSS on cognitive functioning. This study focused on the association between high levels of PTSS related to COVID-19 and alterations in executive functioning by considering executive inhibitions in populations not infected by the virus. Ninety respondents from the Italian population participated in the study. A higher percentage of PTSS was reported. Moreover, respondents with high post-traumatic symptomatology presented deficits in the inhibition of preponderant responses, demonstrating an executive deficit which could be expressed by a difficulty in controlling goal-directed actions. This was underlined by worse performances in elaborating incongruent stimuli in the Stroop task and no-go stimuli in the Go/No-Go task. This report presents preliminary findings underlining the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on cognitive functions. The results confirmed a persistently higher post-traumatic symptomatology related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Italian population and highlighted an association with cognitive inhibition impairment.

Highlights

The effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on mental health were highlighted in the first weeks of the virus outbreak (e.g., [1–4])
For the first time, the results demonstrated that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on the general health population’s cognitive functioning
This study confirms an association between COVID-19-related PTSD symptoms and psychological distress expressed by the psychopathological symptoms assessed by the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90). These findings prove the association between general psychopathological symptomatology and post-traumatic experience [5] and the higher impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health

Summary

Introduction

The effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on mental health were highlighted in the first weeks of the virus outbreak (e.g., [1–4]). Negative psychological conditions and worse mental health were found (for a review: [9,10]). These effects should be ascribed to both the direct (i.e., physical and neurological conditions related to inflammatory processes [11]) and indirect (e.g., social distancing measures, fear of the contagion) effects of the pandemic. As reported by the systematic review of Vindegaard and Benros (2020), anxiety and depression increased in individuals who contracted the disease as well as in health care professionals with direct contact with the disease. As suggested by the authors, the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing psychopathological conditions and has generally decreased psychological well-being in the general population due to the aforementioned experiences associated with the spread of COVID-19

Results

Discussion

Conclusion