The results of the ISS-coordinated Passi e Passi d’Argento surveys conducted from March to December 2020
Almost one Italian out of four (23% of adults) states having lived the experience of the pandemic in an emotionally painful way. The group mainly includes people who had a direct experience with the pandemic because of a Covid-19 death in the family or among the closest circle of friends or because they suffered an economic loss. Furthermore, sedentariness grows among the elderly over 65 in addition to a moderate consumption of alcohol among women. This is revealed by the data from the PASSI and PASSI d’Argento surveys conducted by Local Health Centres (Aziende Sanitarie Locali - ASL) in partnership with the Regional authorities and coordinated, at national level, by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità – ISS (Italian National Institute of Health) and published in the Report titled: “PASSI e PASSI d’Argento e la pandemia COVID-19”. The data issue from two questions contained in the COVID form that was administered in the sample interviews made between August and December 2020, which investigate the respondents’ emotional state with respect to the ongoing pandemic and compare the data on the lifestyles collected during the same period of the year prior to the pandemic: 23% of the adults said that, during the last 30 days, they had thought back to their experience of the pandemic with pain (intrusive thoughts). Intrusive thoughts are strongly modulated by the socio-demographic and physical and mental health condition of the respondents and their real-life experience of COVID-19: they occur more frequently among women, older people, and more socially disadvantaged people because of economic difficulties or a low level of education, and among the residents of the Centre-Southern regions of Italy. They also occur in people with symptoms of depression or whose health condition is compromised by at least one chronic pathology, and most of all, they are more frequent among those whose economic resources worsened because of the pandemic and those who had COVID-19 deaths in the family or among their close circle of friends. Intrusive thoughts are reported by 34% of the people over 65 and, as it happens with adults, they are associated with their physical and mental health condition and their real-life experience of the disease.
According to the Passi d’Argento surveillance data, the pandemic has also changed the lifestyle of people over 65. If the percentage of sedentariness among adults drops when they increase their physical activity in their leisure time, by contrast the percentage of sedentary people increased significantly among old people during the pandemic compared to the same months in 2019, rising from 40% in 2019 to 43% in 2020.
Another change is recorded in the consumption of alcohol. The Passi d’Argento surveillance data collected during the pandemic period from March to December 2020 reveal that the population of people over 65 show a statistically relevant increase in the overall percentage of people reporting alcohol consumption, which rises from 39%, observed in 2019, to 45% in the same months of 2020. This rise can be completely attributed to an increase in the moderate consumption of alcohol (not more than one unit of alcohol a day) among women, which rose from 17% in 2019 to 25% in 2020.
Overall, the trend among adults remains more or less unvaried from 2018: 17% of the respondents between 18 and 64 years of age consumed more alcohol with a greater risk for their health in terms of the quantity and the mode of consumption: 3% made a large habitual use of alcohol, above the daily intake indicated in international guidelines; 8% results to be a binge drinker and another 9% prevalently consumed alcohol between meals. Risky alcohol use is prevalent among socially advantaged classes in terms of income or education and is more frequent among men residing in the North of Italy.
