Self-perception of psychological distress duringthe lock-down period of COVID-19 pandemic crisis

Background and Aim: We evaluated the psychological distress(PD) associated with self-perception of personal and family resources, loneliness, and aging during a lock-down period at home Materials and Methods: 697 subjects answered a questionnaire We registered age, gender, family status, working status and measured several items associating various validated tests We measured the self-perception: a) of stress factors such as occupationalrisk and fear about own health;b) of one's personal and familyresources, related with emotion regulation, behavioral, and socialcoping strategies;c) of loneliness and psychological distress;d)toward own aging Analysis was performed by measuring a scorecalculated for groups of subjects subdivided by gender, agegroups, family status and working position Student's T-test for acomparison between means and Chi-square test for a comparisonbetween percentages were used A p value <0 05 was consideredsignificant Results: Women perceive PD more than men (p<0 004);youngerpeople more than older people (p<0 02);those who live with morethan 2 family members perceive PD more than those who livealone or with one family member (p<0 001);among the categories that remained at home (students, housewives and retirees)students perceive greater PD (p<0 01);those who have to go towork perceive PD more than those did smart working (p<0 003) Conclusions: In the event of a lock-down it is necessary to paymore attention and offer psychological support to the women, theyoung subjects, in those who work outside, and in those who livein numerous families