Publications by authors named "Gabriele Prati"

Background: In contrast to abundant research on the various acute mental effects of COVID-19, the long-term influences of the pandemic are still underexplored in China owing to the paucity of assessment tools. The Pandemic Disengagement Syndrome Scale (PDSS) assesses people's social disengagement as a lasting psychological consequence in Western countries during the post-COVID-19 pandemic era. However, its generalizability across cultures is untested.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: There is theory and evidence supporting a relationship between neighborhood cohesion and mental health among adult people. However, most studies have used a cross-sectional design, and longitudinal studies have provided mixed support for this hypothesis. Moreover, while neighborhood cohesion is assumed to be a consistent predictor of mental health, the possibility of a reciprocal relation has been overlooked.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background/objective: This study aimed to investigate the within-person and between-person effects of religious variables on mental health and vice versa.

Method: Using a large sample of adults residing in Germany from the GESIS Panel study ( = 8146), the random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used. Data on six dimensions of religion (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how economic status and mental health influence each other over 20 years, focusing on both individual (within-person) and group (between-person) effects.
  • Results show that while both social drift/selection and social causation theories are supported at the group level, they are not consistently upheld at the individual level, especially with objective economic measures like income.
  • The findings suggest that these social processes primarily operate at a population level rather than impacting individual changes, highlighting the need for targeted policies and programs to address these issues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Previous research investigated the trajectories of mental health and well-being during and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, less is known about the trajectories of mental health and well-being before, during, and two years after the onset of the pandemic. The aim of the current study was to investigate the trajectory of depression symptoms and subjective well-being (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: In a preregistered study, we examined whether worries about COVID-19 are simultaneously linked with enhanced well-being through social interaction and with reduced well-being through depression symptoms.

Method: In August 2020, census-matched participants from high- and low-prevalence regions in the United States and Italy (N = 857) completed assessments of COVID-19 worry, social interaction, depression symptoms, and well-being.

Results: Worries about COVID-19 predicted both more social interaction and more depression (ps < 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The belief that aging-related cognitive decline is inevitable is associated with impaired cognitive performance of older adults. Little is, however, known about the association between changes in essentialist beliefs about cognitive aging and mental health in the long term and among both younger and older adults. From a theoretical perspective, it would be expected that changes in essentialist beliefs about cognitive aging predict changes in mental health among older adults compared to younger adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Prolonged media exposure after collective crises is widely shown to have adverse effects on people's mental health. Do these effects show variation across different countries? In the present study, we compared the link between media exposure related to COVID-19 and mental health-related outcomes in the United States and Italy, two countries with high levels of early COVID-19 prevalence.

Method: Participants matched on age and gender in the United States ( = 415) and Italy (= 442) completed assessments of media exposure, stress, anxiety, COVID-19 worry, and other variables shortly after the first wave of infections in 2020.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This commentary discusses an article by Jacobs and George which investigated how youth participation can be an important component of health policy-making by conducting a case study based on qualitative interviews. We appreciate the methodology and the main findings of the study, which contribute to advancing our understanding of the challenges and opportunities of youth participation in health policy-making. We note that this article raises several questions and issues that we must address to advance research and practice: () is there is a substantial gap between rhetoric and reality in terms of youth participation? () do youth policies have a direct impact on youth participation? () can we define and operationalise meaningful engagement? () who is included and who is excluded in youth participation projects? and () is youth participation a right, a requirement and a value?

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The aims of the present study were to investigate (1) whether the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictive measures to control its spread were associated with changes in happiness before and after the pandemic and (2) whether household size, living with a partner/spouse, living with at least one son/daughter, financial support, income loss, and job loss following the pandemic were associated with happiness after controlling for previous levels of happiness. We use data from the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW). Specifically, we used longitudinal data from 2283 respondents who participated in the SHIW 2016 and SHIW 2020.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The aim of the present study was to develop and validate a self-report measure that investigates people's general disengagement after the acute phases of the pandemic. Across three studies, we examined the psychometric features of the Pandemic Disengagement Syndrome Scale (PDSS) in four national contexts. In Study 1, we developed the instrument and investigated the factorial structure, internal consistency, measurement invariance across gender and countries (the United States and Italy), and discriminant validity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: Previous research has documented the role of different categories of psychosocial factors (i.e., sociodemographic factors, personality, subjective life circumstances, activity, physical health, and childhood circumstances) in predicting subjective well-being and quality of life among older adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Research on the relationship between fertility and gender ideology revealed inconsistent results. In the present study, we argue that inconsistencies may be due to the fact that such a relationship may be nonlinear. We hypothesize a U-shaped relationship between two dimensions of gender ideology (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A previous work of Schwartz and Rubel-Lifschitz (2009, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015546) highlighted the association between human values and gender equality.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The efficacy of public measures for reducing the transmission of the COVID-19 infection relies on citizens' voluntary adherence with prescribed actions. Drawing on prior literature about compliant behavior, this study aimed to identify factors associated with people engagement in health-protective behaviors by including a conjoint complement of instrumental/self-oriented, normative/community-based, and affective variables.

Method: A cross-sectional study involving a non-representative sample of 4045 Italian citizens was carried out during the first stage of the pandemic (April-May 2020).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The aim of this study is to examine the association between citizens' perceptions of the effectiveness of the institutional response, their connection and responsibility to their community (Sense of Community-SoC; Sense of Community Responsibility-SoC-R), and their personal and social concerns about the current emergency and their perceptions of a postpandemic future during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Another variable considered was the personal reflexivity about the COVID-19 pandemic. 3925 Italian adults completed an online questionnaire during the first COVID-19 lockdown.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lockdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have had profound effects on everyday life worldwide, but their effect on mental health remains unclear because available meta-analyses and reviews rely mostly on cross-sectional studies. We conducted a rapid review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies and natural experiments investigating the relationship between COVID-19 lockdowns and mental health. A total of 25 studies involving 72 004 participants and 58 effect sizes were analyzed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The aim of the current study was to determine the extent to which Italian people intend to receive a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 and to investigate its associations with worry, institutional trust and beliefs about the non-natural origin of the virus. A sample of 624 people living in Italy was recruited in April 2020 using an online platform. The survey included questions about intention to receive a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, trust, worry and beliefs about the origin of the virus.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This research aimed at investigating the psychological impact of national quarantine in Italy, and the psychosocial factors that are may influence this impact. A convenience sample of 1569 people living in Italy responded to an online survey using virtual snowball sampling. The questionnaire included measures of mental health symptoms, well-being, worry about the epidemic of COVID-19, likelihood of infection, coping efficacy, trust in the institutional response to the epidemic of COVID-19, financial loss, perceived house size, and media exposure to COVID-19 outbreak.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) is a theoretical-methodological approach that has been designed to promote positive development (e.g., well-being and health, social-emotional and cognitive development, academic or career advancement) and civic engagement among young people.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The central aim of the present research was to examine the psychometric properties of adapted versions of the sense of community (SOC) responsibility scale in three Italian samples. We examined the psychometric properties of three modified versions of the sense of community responsibility (SOC-R) scale. Consistent with the original scale, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the scale was unidimensional and exhibited excellent internal consistency.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community have been associated with important outcomes for adolescents. However, the complex interplay between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community among adolescents is not clear. Moreover, the studies showing an association between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community have been cross-sectional.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Community coalitions or intersectoral partnerships have long been advocated for the promotion of population health. In the present study, we assessed the quality of the functioning of health promotion partnerships created within a large community health promotion program implemented by the Emilia-Romagna region located in the north-east of Italy (2014-2016). In particular, we aimed to test the effectiveness of partnership working in strengthening participants' empowerment, sense of community and ultimately, the outcomes of a well-functioning partnership, conceptualized as including perceived effectiveness of health promotion interventions developed by the partnership, trust in their implementation and personal commitment in health promotion in the future.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Previous research on gender differences in road crashes has focussed uniquely on car drivers and there has been little research examining such differences among cyclists. In this study, we investigated gender differences in bicycle crashes, using routinely recorded crash data. The present paper focussed on characteristics related to the type of crashes (type of collision and opponent vehicle), the infrastructure (road type and type of road segment), the environmental (season, road surface condition and weather) and time period (time of the day and day of the week).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Several innovative measures in traffic control applied in Europe have successfully improved the comfort and safety of cycling, among which is the green waves for cyclists. Consecutive traffic lights are synchronised to create a green wave, increasing comfort and decreasing waiting times and related deliberate red-light running. This study focused on exploring the user acceptance of green wave systems and the user evaluation of six distinct interface designs (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF