Mental Health Consequences of COVID-19 Pandemic Period in the European Population: An Institutional Challenge

Abstract

The worldwide spread of SARS-CoV-2 has been responsible for an infectious pandemic, with repercussions on socio-economic aspects and on the physical and mental health of the general population. The present systematic review aimed to evaluate the data belonging to the European framework, analyzing the population by age group. Original articles and reviews on the state of mental health of the general European population have been researched starting from 2021. Initially, a total of 1764 studies were found, among which a total of 75 were selected. Youth were the age group most affected by pandemic consequences on mental health, with emotional and behavioral alterations observed from a third to more than a half of children and adolescents examined. Among both adolescents and adults, the female gender had a higher prevalence of psychopathological symptoms. The main risk factors were poor social support, economic difficulties, and, in particular, unemployment or job changes. Additional individual risk factors were the perception of loneliness, the presence of pre-pandemic mental illness/distress, and some personality traits, such as neuroticism, impulsiveness, and the use of maladaptive coping strategies. Unexpectedly, the elderly maintained good resilience towards change, even if a stress factor was represented by the feeling of loneliness and poor social contact. As regards suicidal behaviors, among adolescents, there was an increase in attempts of 25%, with a greater risk for the female gender. This risk increased also among adults, in association with symptoms of anxiety and depression, and poor socio-environmental conditions. In conclusion, some population groups were found to be at greater risk of psychological burden during pandemic waves, thus representing priority targets for socio-health interventions.

Relationships between Individual and Social Resources, Anxiety and Depression in the Early Lockdown Stage by the COVID-19 in Chile

“…These results, showing increased levels of stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, have been confirmed in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies with data obtained during the first year of the pandemic and even in subsequent years, e.g., [ 53 , 57 , 58 , 59 ]. Moreover, these empirical results are confirmed cross-culturally, as empirical evidence shows similar indicators of worse mental health across geographic areas, e.g., [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 ].…”

Speech Emotion Recognition Using Attention Model

“…However, the most important application is related to monitoring the emotional and mental well-being of vulnerable citizens. The mental well-being of citizens has been of utmost importance in the past couple of years due to the mental health problems created by social isolation and remote work culture that was introduced as a result of the pandemic lockdown restrictions [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Currently, physicians place great emphasis on monitoring the emotional sanity of healthy community members, including healthcare professionals [ 10 ].…”

“Geriatric Proximity” Intervention in COVID-19 Context: Contribution to Reducing Loneliness and Improving Affectivity

“…The most affected population, due to fragility, was undoubtedly the older adults, especially in residential homes [2]. Data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States indicate that 17% of the infections were in the population over 65 years age, but 80% of the deaths occurred in this population [3,4]. To protect the institutionalized older adults, the government of Portugal decreed the cancellation of visits in residential homes for older adults.…”