The detrimental effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on mental health are well-documented; to adjust to the new challenges posed by the pandemic, the population employed a variety of health behaviors: some are adaptive (e.g., hand washing) and their maintenance should be promoted, whereas others are maladaptive (e.g., social avoidance) and could degenerate in full blown disorders if left untreated.
Furthermore, the pandemic affected distinct sections of the population in different ways: existing problems might have been exacerbated in contexts characterized by low socioeconomic status and scarcity of resources.
Literature indicates that knowledge of a disease, when reliable, can act as a buffer against negative psychological effects.
For these reasons, the aim of this project is to: investigate the long-term psychological effects and lifestyle changes associated with the pandemic, intervening on dysfunctional ones and reinforcing functional changes; develop tailored psychological interventions to address the needs of individuals especially in socially deprived contexts; implement a strategy to spread reliable information and prevent disinformation and misinformation.
To this end, the project will include: a data collection phase to assess the long-term psychological response to COVID-19 and lifestyles changes, implementing an online questionnaire for the general population and a paper and pencil version for areas of Rome identified as low-income; a treatment phase, implementing tailored psychological support for those who have asked for help during the first phase; a phase to release a software application to provide support for: the remote administration of psychological tests or surveys; a communication interface between the person and an healthcare operator; educational contents to disseminate reliable COVID-19 related information. Lastly, a follow-up phase will involve future evaluations of those participants who expressed their willingness to be contacted again.
During the last year, several studies have investigated the financial, social and psychological consequences of one of the most remarkable events of our century, the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the first outbreak of the virus, studies on general and specific populations have shown that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in terms of life-style changes and of psychological consequences, caused by the pandemic itself and by the health measures imposed by governments all over the world to contain the spread of the virus. In Italy, one of the most affected country by the COVID-19, many studies have reported significant increasement in the level of stress, depression and anxiety in the general population (Mazza et al., 2020a), but also among specific populations, such as parents and children (Mazza et al., 2020b), patients with obesity (Marchitelli et al., 2020) and psychiatric patients (Burrai et al., 2020).
Nevertheless, most of the research focused on the psychological effects that occurred during the COVID-19 outbreak, while the long-lasting effects of the pandemic on the general population's mental health, and whether the behavioral changes that occurred will be maintained post-pandemic, are still under-investigated issues. Considering the psychological impact of past epidemics and pandemics, studies underlined that, after an outbreak, psychological long-lasting effects are possible, such as the development of PTSD symptoms, insomnia (Su et al., 2005) and alcohol use disorder symptoms, even three years after the outbreak (Wu et al., 2008). In a recent systematic review (Xiong et al., 2020), on the psychological impact of the COVID-19, has been reported that, patients hospitalized after severe forms of COVID-19, three months after discharge, have manifested psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, insomnia and post-traumatic stress syndrome. According to the literature on past epidemics and pandemics it is important to investigate the long-term psychological effect of the pandemic and the life-styles changes caused by this unprecedented situation. Furthermore, given the huge psychological impact of the COVID-19, of critical importance it is also the necessity to provide psychological support to people, in particular to those who are settled in low-income area that are not able to afford a psychotherapeutic treatment, to overcome the distress symptomatology raised by the pandemic and to adjust to the new life-styles changes imposed by the COVID-19.
Worth noted are also the incongruous behaviors with the health measures of the Italian citizens during the first wave of the COVID-19. Public willingness to comply with the health measures proposed by authorities is critical for controlling the outcomes of an infectious disease outbreak (Roma et al., 2020a). The situation in many countries during the COVID-19 pandemic indicates that, despite legal penalties and mass information campaigns, not all citizens have adopted the recommended behaviors to prevent the spread of the virus. Furthermore, with the vaccination campaigns activated all over the world for the administration of COVID-19 vaccines, there has been an inconsistency between the information that has been provided, for example about the effectiveness of vaccines and their side effects, creating great confusion and misinformation, leading many people to refuse vaccination for the fear of its consequences. Thus, it is of great importance to direct further research on behavioral compliance to the health measures and to provide tailored and reliable information about all the COVID-19 queries. Indeed, it has been shown that reliable informative campaigns, even through social media, on epidemics and pandemics can be beneficial to the general public, inducing also the development and the maintenance of positive attitudes and behaviors that may contain the spread of the virus, such as hand washing, wearing masks and social distancing (Al-Dmour, Salman, Abuhashesh, & Al-Dmour, 2020).
Overall, this research project aims to investigate the long-term psychological effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the well-established lifestyles changes, trying to stabilize functional behavioral changes; to provide psychological support to those people who are settled in low-income area; and, to implement an informatics system device to disseminate reliable information about the COVID-19 issues (e.g., vaccines, health measures, restrictions).