The psychological impact of Covid-19 on the population: descriptive analysis of lockdown relatedpsychological problems Project: #iorestoacasa Psychological Support

Abstract

The present work intends to present and analyse the free psychological support service datas of a group of forty psychologists during Italian lockdown in phase 1, mainly in Salerno’s province. A specialist task force has defined a joined protocol with the main objective of offering psychological support to the population. This protocol included a main demographic information request and a 30-minute interwiew to reinforce personal copying strategies. At the end of the provided service each psychologist noted the emerged symptoms on a shared electronic spreadsheet. The results highlight a request of support for problems related to anxiety and moodiness and in a second period relational difficulties and a sense of solitude are added. The General Adjustment Syndrome of Seyle and the polyvagal theory of Porges explain these symptoms as caused by personal and interpersonal perception of safety absence. This descriptive study has shown how home isolation has amplified coexistence difficulties, mainly experimented by female sex, preexinting psychic problems, and individual solitude perception in addition to social emptiness. It is higly probable that the emergency has destabilized those people who already experienced past individual and family emotional fragility. Forced social isolation, the inability to trace security signals within social relations negatively affected stability in Salerno’s population.