49.4% of young Italians between 18 and 25 years old said they had suffered from anxiety and depression due to the health emergency. For the same reason, 62.1% have changed their vision of the future. These are just some of the data that emerged from the report ‘Post Pandemic Generation: needs and expectations of young Italians in the post Covid 19’ period, developed in collaboration with Censis, the National Youth Council and the National Youth Agency in June 2022. To make people understand how important it is listening to the children and intervening to intercept the discomfort before it becomes a nuisance, the ‘Do you see me?’ schools project was born, which actively involved students, teachers, families, experts and local professionals within schools.
Through 6 days of awareness, 96 anthropological conversations and 6 workshops – reports a note – “important qualitative and quantitative data” were collected and presented today in Rome, during a press conference preceded by a closed-door meeting with the institutions to promote a debate on the project so that it can be replicated in other schools, and on the prevention activities to be undertaken in the institutes. The initiative, created thanks to the collaboration between Lundbeck Italia, the Italian affiliate of the Danish group dedicated to neurosciences present in our country for thirty years, and the consultancy company Your Business Partner, aims to represent a starting point for designing a model of listening and reading adolescent problems in order to give appropriate and timely responses, with the support of appropriate professional figures and the activation of a systemic response within the territory.
“There are almost 1 billion people in the world who suffer from mental disorders, of which 14% are adolescents, as reported by the WHO. According to the State of Children in the EU 2024, it is also estimated that among children aged between between 15 and 19 years old, approximately 8% suffer from anxiety and 4% from depression and in 2020, approximately 931 young people in Europe died per year from suicide, equivalent to the loss of approximately 18 lives per week – underlines Sergio De Filippis , professor of Addiction Psychiatry at the University of Rome La Sapienza, health director of Villa von Siebenthal and scientific consultant of the Do you see me? project – To assess the extent of this risk it was necessary to enter schools and get children, parents and teachers to talk” .
Thus “we discovered that, in the selected sample, 71% of the students interviewed say they experience discomfort – highlights De Filippis – while, among parents, only 31% notice their child’s problems. 100% of teachers report this situation among students, even more than they themselves say. 27.6% of students blame the family sphere, but for parents, on the other hand, the cause is mainly attributable to the environment school (39%). Teachers say that 37% of it is due to the family sphere and little (12%) to the school. We note that each adult blames the other for what happens. Each of them must have the strength to educate teenager and this is where the institutions must lend a hand.”
The research carried out also examined some of the most common situations and disorders among young people, namely substance use, eating and sleeping disorders and bullying. 54% of students – the report indicates – said that they, or their classmates, had used substances, 15% of parents reported use by their children or their classmates, while 48% fear its use by their children. From the teachers’ point of view, the figure rises to 19%.
As regards eating disorders – the research highlights – 38% of children say they have or have had them, 13% of parents are aware of an eating disorder in their children, 33% of teachers report problems of this kind among their students. Sleep disorders are widespread among 63% of students (about a third admit that they struggle to fall asleep due to anxieties and worries), but only 19% of families and 8% of teachers are aware of it. 38% of the children reported experiences of bullying suffered personally or by their classmates (8 out of 18 had experienced it in middle school). 17% of parents are aware of this problem, but only 4% of teachers. A different perception of reality therefore clearly emerges.
“During the pandemic, all Italians declared they had had psychological problems, but the impact was greater on young people: our data shows that in adults aged 37 to 64 and in the elderly, the numbers of those who have suffered from psychological disorders are much lower, on average just over 1 in 5, while for young people it rises to 44.6% of those under 37 and even 49.4% of young people between 18 and 25 – comments Ketty Vaccaro, head of Health and Welfare Censis – It is an important aspect that signals another epidemic from which younger people have suffered. Like Censis, we have also carried out a study on the general impact of the pandemic on vulnerabilities and we have recorded how they have all increased. There are two elements which have contributed to a particular extent to this disorientation: first of all the basic vulnerability of the adolescent, who experiences a delicate existential transition in which identity and an idea of the future are built, and then the constraint to live without the support of the peer group, remaining isolated”.
“With the establishment of the Welfare Observatory, the CNG has launched a challenge – declares Francesco Marchionni, advisor to the Presidency of the National Youth Council, with responsibilities for Health and Wellbeing – Working on the well-being of the young generations is necessary to cultivate development in our country. In this journey we have seen how there is a strong demand from young people for a world that is more socially sustainable and more inclusive. The importance of well-being, achieved through the places and spaces in which young people live, demonstrates how the discomfort also comes from that sense of abandonment and inadequacy of places typical of some social contexts”.
“Prevention in schools is a central element for developing a culture of mental health, which is still scarcely widespread today – points out Alberto Siracusano, full professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rome Policlinico Tor Vergata and coordinator of the Mental Health technical table of the Ministry of Health – The the task of those who work in the sector is to provide children with everything that can help them develop mental well-being and promote a balance in social, family and educational relationships”.
“Among the objectives of the Technical Roundtable on Mental Health there are projects that concern the perinatal mental health of women and the early recognition of depression during pregnancy. Intervening quickly – warns Siracusano – before this disease becomes a structured element in the lives of mothers is a primary objective for us. The table is also designing, together with the Higher Institute of Health, guidelines on affective and developmental disorders. One of the ministry’s projects concerns the promotion of a new national action plan for health mental, with great attention to developmental age and the transition to adulthood”.
This project “was born from careful listening to the needs of the youngest people who represent the future of our society – concludes Tiziana Mele, managing director of Lundbeck Italia – Through this initiative we were able to highlight the needs of students and collect qualitative data – indicative quantities of the hardships they experience on a daily basis. The school project Do you see me?, which was born from our short film on depression in adolescents, made together with Giffoni Innovation Hub, is therefore a starting point for designing a model for listening and reading both the hardships and children and their families, which allows us to give timely responses with the involvement of appropriate professional figures. This morning we met with the representatives of the institutions with the specific objective of presenting and discussing this project, carried out with a precise scientific methodology, with them, so that they can. evaluate it and possibly extend it to other institutions in Italy and thus allow more and more young people to benefit from it. Listening, understanding and acting are the fundamental elements to prevent youth discomfort from becoming a disorder. We believe it is an important task of which we, like Lundbeck, have written the first chapter: however, we are aware that joint action is necessary to have an impact on the system”.
The national
research took place in 3 secondary schools representing the school system (Institute of Higher Education (IIS) ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ of Carate Brianza, Liceo Classico e Humane Sciences ‘Benedetto da Norcia’ of Rome and Liceo Scientifico and Linguistic ‘Giulio Cesare Vanini’ of Casarano), involving over 1,800 people of which more than 1,700 students.
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