Unlabelled: Policy Points Preventive measures such as the national lockdown in Italy have been effective in slowing the spread of COVID-19. However, they also had psychological and economic impacts on people's lives, which should not be neglected as they may reduce citizens' trust and compliance with future health mandates. Engaging citizens in their own health management and in the collaboration with health care professionals and authorities via the adoption of a collaborative approach to health policy development is fundamental to fostering such measures' effectiveness. Psychosocial analysis of citizens' concerns and emotional reactions to preventive policies is important in order to plan personalized health communication campaigns.
Context: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, between February 23 and March 8, 2020, some areas of Italy were declared "red zones," with citizens asked to stay home and avoid unnecessary interpersonal contacts. Such measures were then extended, between March 10 and May 4, 2020, to the whole country. However, compliance with such behaviors had an important impact on citizens' personal, psychological, and economic well-being. This could result in reduced trust in authorities and lowered compliance. Keeping citizens engaged in their own health and in preventive behaviors is thus a key strategy for the success of such measures. This paper presents the results from a study conducted in Italy to monitor levels of people's health engagement, sentiment, trust in authorities, and perception of risk at two different time points.
Methods: Two independent samples (n = 968 and n = 1,004), weighted to be representative of the adult Italian population, were recruited in two waves corresponding to crucial moments of the Italian COVID-19 epidemic: between February 28 and March 4 (beginning of "phase 1," after the first regional lockdowns), and between May 12 and May 18 (beginning of "phase 2," after the national lockdown was partially dismissed). Respondents were asked to complete an online survey with a series of both validated measures and ad hoc items. A series of t-tests, general linear models, and contingency tables were carried out to assess if and how our measures changed over time in different social groups.
Findings: Although sense of self and social responsibility increased between the two waves, and trust toward authorities remained substantially the same, trust in science, consumer sentiment, and health engagement decreased. Our results showed that while both the level of general concern for the emergency and the perceived risk of infection increased between the two waves, in the second wave our participants reported being more concerned for the economic consequences of the pandemic than the health risk.
Conclusions: The potentially disruptive psychological impact of lockdown may hamper citizens' compliance with, and hence the effectiveness of, behavioral preventive measures. This suggests that preventive measures should be accompanied by collaborative educational plans aimed at promoting people's health engagement by making citizens feel they are partners in the health preventive endeavor and involved in the development of health policies.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12506 | DOI Listing |
J Health Serv Res Policy
January 2025
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Objective: This study examined whether being scheduled in a screening clinic versus scheduled directly with a long-term provider to conduct a mental health intake (MHI) is associated with engagement in child psychiatry services in New England, USA.
Method: We used electronic medical record data from one safety-net hospital serving a predominantly low-income and minoritised population. The study sample included 815 youths aged 0 to 25 years, referred or scheduled for a MHI between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2016.
J Gerontol Soc Work
January 2025
Wayne State University School of Social Work, Detroit, USA.
We examined information seeking strategies and predictors of service awareness from a 2019 survey of Detroit area adults. Participants were age 60+ (mean age = 72.10; SD = 8.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Child Adolesc Psychiatry
January 2023
Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Background: Identifying signs of autism is essential for enabling timely diagnosis and intervention. Children from multiethnic and socioeconomic disadvantaged settings are typically diagnosed with autism later than their general peers. This feasibility study explored the psychometric properties of a new instrument, Joint Attention Observation Schedule Preschool (JA-OBS Preschool), in children with suspected autism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFActa Med Philipp
December 2024
Institute of Human Genetics, National Institutes of Health, University of the Philippines Manila.
Background: As social media continue to grow as popular and convenient tools for acquiring and disseminating health information, the need to investigate its utilization by laypersons encountering common medical issues becomes increasingly essential.
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Methods: This study employed an inductive content analysis of user-posted content in both public and private Facebook groups catering specifically to G6PD deficiency.
Prev Med Rep
January 2025
Department of Communication, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA.
Objective: Discrimination is a social determinant contributing to health inequities in the United States (US). This study investigated the prevalence of, and sociodemographic disparities in, perceived everyday discrimination among a national sample of US adults.
Methods: We used data from the 2023 National Health Interview Survey ( = 27,538) and estimated the prevalence of three perceived everyday discrimination outcomes (1) any discrimination, (2) unique components of the discrimination experience, and (3) the Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS) (range: 0-20) overall and by age, sex assigned at birth, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, educational attainment, income-to-poverty ratio, and urban-rural status.
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