Dotti Sani Giulia M, Molteni Francesco, Sarti Simone
Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
Appl Res Qual Life. 2023;18(2):931-956. doi: 10.1007/s11482-022-10120-5. Epub 2022 Nov 15.
This article contributes to the quality of life literature by investigating gender and age gaps in psycho-physiological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Specifically, we investigate whether women experienced higher levels of distress than men, and if such gap can be explained by a greater negative reaction of women in the experience of a negative COVID-19 related event, such as the illness or death of a relative. Moreover, we explore whether age moderated or amplified the effect of a negative event on distress among women and men. To do so we rely on an ad hoc survey carried out between April 2020 and June 2021 in Italy, the first European country to be hit by the pandemic. Our results indicate that subjects who experienced the hospitalization or, more so, the death of a family member during the pandemic were more exposed to psycho-psychological distress compared to subjects who were not directly touched by COVID-19. Moreover, our results show that while women were on average more likely to express feelings of distress than men in absence of evident stressors, this gap disappeared among subjects who experience the death of a relative. Furthermore, our results indicate that experiencing a negative COVID-19 related event led to an increase in distress among all respondents except older men, who appeared to be the most resilient to the manifestation of any sign of distress. These results speak to important age and gender differences in the feelings and externalization of grief in the Italian context.
本文通过调查意大利新冠疫情期间心理生理困扰方面的性别和年龄差异，为生活质量文献做出了贡献。具体而言，我们研究了女性是否比男性经历了更高水平的困扰，以及这种差距是否可以通过女性在经历与新冠相关的负面事件（如亲属的疾病或死亡）时更大的负面反应来解释。此外，我们探讨了年龄是否缓和或放大了负面事件对男性和女性困扰的影响。为此，我们依赖于2020年4月至2021年6月在意大利进行的一项专项调查，意大利是首个受疫情冲击的欧洲国家。我们的结果表明，与未直接受到新冠疫情影响的受试者相比，在疫情期间经历过家庭成员住院或更严重的是经历过家庭成员死亡的受试者更容易遭受心理困扰。此外，我们的结果显示，在没有明显压力源的情况下，女性平均比男性更有可能表达困扰情绪，但在经历过亲属死亡的受试者中，这种差距消失了。此外，我们的结果表明，经历与新冠相关的负面事件会导致所有受访者的困扰增加，但老年男性除外，他们似乎对任何困扰迹象的表现最具抵抗力。这些结果说明了意大利背景下悲伤情绪和悲伤外化方面重要的年龄和性别差异。
