COVID-19 (Corona-Virus Disease 2019) in Italy and the measures that were adopted to contain its diffusion had a strong impact on people’s quality of life and mental health. The objective of the study was to quantify the psychological impact of the lockdown period on the general Italian population during the two weeks when the COVID-19 emergency in Italy was at its peak. The study (1556 adults) was conducted from April 6th to April 12th, 2020. A survey was developed through Google Forms in order to assess different psychological measures (Self Efficacy, Locus of Control, Social Connectedness, Sense of Virtual Community, Flourishing, Positive and Negative Affect, Life Satisfaction, and Risk Propensity). The results were then compared to reference data. Thelockdown period increased arousal mainly for negative emotions, but also for positive emotions, and quality of life seemed to be reduced. From a psychosocial point of view, while social connectedness has decreased during lockdown, probably because of isolation and social distancing, the virtual social community seemed to increase in the same period. Interestingly, we revealed how self efficacy increased during the lockdown period, and, at the same time, the Locus of control appeared as externalized, and the risk propensity as reduced. The results are discussed considering previous literature, and a coherent theoretical framework is proposed in order to refine the forecasting model for the psychological impact of the lockdown.

More than a year has passed since “patient 0” was found and COVID-19 is now an established reality that a lot of people have had to accept and coexist with. In Italy, the pandemic hit in “waves”, but the studies assessing the longitudinal impact of the pandemic in the general population are not many. In this paper, we compared data collected during the first wave with data gathered during the second one, so that we can provide insights about the Italian population’s psychological adaptation to the pandemic also by comparing them with pre-pandemic normative scores. From our results, it seemed that people were seeking a compromise: indeed, despite the still-relevant risk perception, people apparently “learned” how to deal with the pandemic as indicated by an increase in self-efficacy and a more internal locus of control.