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Staying Strong, But For How Long? Mental Health During COVID-19 in Italy

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Abstract

A recent literature investigating mental health consequences of social distancing measures, has found a substantial increase in self-reported sleep and anxiety disorders and depressive symptoms during lockdown periods. These evidence are in contrast with the results we obtain using data on monthly purchases of psychiatric drugs by the universe of Italian pharmacies over the period of interest. We argue that this discrepancy has three potential causes: i) use of non-pharmaceutical therapies and non-medical solutions during lockdown periods; ii) unmet needs due to both demand- and supply-side shortages in healthcare services and iii) the subjectivity of self-assessed psychological health in survey studies, capturing also mild mental distress which might not evolve into mental disorder needing pharmacological treatment. This last point seems to be confirmed by lack of statistical significance of any measure of mobility change and reason of mobility (which we proxy with mobile phone data) on antidepressants and anxiolytics purchases during the entire 2020 period.

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  • Francesca Marazzi & Andrea Piano Mortari & Federico Belotti & Giuseppe Carrà & Ciro Cattuto & Joanna Kopinska & Daniela Paolotti & Vincenzo Atella, 2022. "Staying Strong, But For How Long? Mental Health During COVID-19 in Italy," CEIS Research Paper 541, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 26 Apr 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:541
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    1. Onur Altindag & Bilge Erten & Pinar Keskin, 2022. "Mental Health Costs of Lockdowns: Evidence from Age-Specific Curfews in Turkey," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 320-343, April.
    2. Péter Elek & Anikó Bíró & Petra Fadgyas‐Freyler, 2021. "Income gradient of pharmaceutical panic buying at the outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 2312-2320, September.
    3. Tiziana Carpi & Airo Hino & Stefano Maria Iacus & Giuseppe Porro, 2021. "Twitter Subjective Well-Being Indicator During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Country Comparative Study," Papers 2101.07695, arXiv.org.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mental health; lockdown; anxiety; depression; drugs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • R40 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - General
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

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