According to Istat's 2020 report on fair and sustainable well-being, mental well-being worsens among the elderly and among residents in Lombardy, Piedmont and Campania. The BES provides an annual analysis of the progress and critical issues of the dimensions of well-being in Italy. In the year of the pandemic, the analysis of the mental health index takes on particular importance.
The Institute of Statistics reports that the general change for the total population compared to 2019 is not significant, perhaps because in the early stages of the epidemic the evaluation of one's health conditions was influenced by the relativization of one's own psycho-physical state in comparison to that of other people in worse situations and by the important role played by the family context which made it possible to maintain an atmosphere of serenity in most families.
However, different trends emerge in subgroups of the population. The situation of people aged 75 and over worsens both among men and women; among men of this age it drops by 1 point (which becomes -2 points for residents in the North), among women the drop is also observed among those aged 65-74 (-1.7).
The conditions of greater isolation experienced during 2020 especially affected the mental health of single people in the 55-64 age group, even here especially in the North. Even among young women aged 20-24, however, the score dropped by more than 2 points compared to the previous year.
The mental health index worsens in Lombardy, Piedmont and Campania which present the lowest values together with Molise. Gender gaps are widening, with more unfavorable conditions for women (66 versus 71.1). Mental well-being conditions deteriorate with increasing age, with a difference of approximately 10 points between the scores of the youngest and oldest.
The positive evolution of life expectancy stops. The health chapter notes in particular that the positive evolution of life expectancy at birth between 2010 and 2019, despite evident geographical and gender inequalities, was severely slowed down by Covid-19 which canceled out, completely in the North and partially in other areas of the country, the expected gains in years of life accrued over the decade.
The Mental Health Index is a measure of psychological distress (psychological distress) obtained from the summary of the scores obtained by each interviewee over the age of 14 on the questions referring to the four main dimensions of mental health (anxiety, depression, loss of behavioral or emotional control and psychological well-being). The index varies between 0 and 100, with better psychological well-being conditions as the value of the index increases.
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