Psychiatric symptoms and emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Italian adolescents during the third lockdown: a cross-sectional cohort study
Open accessAbstract
A previous study showed that about 80% of Italian adolescents reported isolated symptoms of acute or post-traumatic stress during the first lockdown in Italy. We proposed a new questionnaire to investigate the presence of symptoms related to anxiety, panic, depression, eating disorders, sleep disorders, social withdrawal, stress disorders, psychotic symptoms, anti-conservative thoughts, and self-harming acts aggravated by COVID-19 restrictions and possible differences between males and females. 500 adolescents (12–18 years) completed an online survey created using validated scales. 41% of the respondents felt more stress than during the first lockdown. 1.85% showed suprathreshold symptoms for post-traumatic stress disorder and 21% showed isolated symptoms of acute or post-traumatic stress due to the pandemic. In addition, we found psychotic symptoms (16%), panic (25% suprathreshold), anxiety (46.8% suprathreshold), depression (18.7% suprathreshold), eating-related symptoms (51%), sleep difficulties (57%), a tendency to social withdrawal after the pandemic (15%), suicidal ideation (30%), and self-harming behavior (9%). Furthermore, girls showed a more severe level of distress. The results show a high prevalence of symptoms because of the COVID-19 pandemic and confirm the need for easy access to support and treatment service to help contain the bio-psycho-social risk factors prompted by the current pandemic and promptly and effectively manage the consequences.
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An increase in subthreshold PTSD was found across different populations and cultures, possibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Such an increase in subthreshold PTSD was also found across different populations and cultures, which might be due to the COVID-19 pandemic around the globe [19–21].”
From Effects of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for Chinese adults with PTSD symptoms: protocol for a randomised controlled trial (2024) · cites this paper as [20]
The Results (First outcome; page unavailable) report subthreshold PTSD symptoms in 68 of 378 Italian adolescents during the pandemic. The Discussion (page unavailable) compares increases in PTSD and ASD diagnoses with an earlier survey, but does not establish an increase specifically in subthreshold PTSD or show that it occurred across different populations and cultures. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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- Authors
- Mensi, M. M., Iacopelli, M., Orlandi, M., Capone, L., Rogantini, C., Vecchio, A., Casini, E., & Borgatti, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Pavia (IT)
- Fondazione Istituto Neurologico Nazionale Casimiro Mondino (IT)
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2022-12-03
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 20901-20901
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9719459
- OpenAlex
- W4310784273
- Cited by
- 17
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6
- FWCI
- 3.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Ministero della Salute
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents, psychiatric symptoms, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychotic symptoms, eating disorders, sleep disorders, social withdrawal, suicidal ideation, self-harm, gender differences, Italian adolescents
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, Adolescent, Communicable Disease Control, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Italy, Male, Cohort Studies, Pandemics
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