It will be operational within a few weeks multidisciplinary help desk ad direct access turned to face the youth psychic distress which, according to the data, in recent years has exploded, passing from an episodic phenomenon to a very frequent occurrence. We are talking about a whole series of typical symptoms of a stressful conditioncome sleep disordersconcerns, anxietysometimes alterations of the alimentary conduct which, if neglected, can end up generating more structural problems.
While until a few years ago, mental distress in young people had much lower numbers (in 2015 there were 51 new accesses) and was focused on real psychosis like schizophrenia, today accesses have quadrupled (in 2022 let’s talk about 226 new cases) and mainly have personality disorders that manifest themselves with sometimes atypical symptoms, such as eating disorders, substance abuse, self-harm: this is the predominant symptomatology that professionals now see in young people.
“As much as mental health services have made efforts to open up and make themselves more reachable – comments Dr. Rosario Cambria, psychiatrist and project contact person -, we are talking about an explosion of the phenomenon, which among other things concerns people with an already overt unease ”.
It is difficult at the moment to make a “identikit” who these young people are: the Ausl operators are still analyzing the data to better detail them but from the observatory of dr. Cambria, which treats the most serious cases and is therefore partial in view, seems to have one clear predominance for the female sex. While other once typical indicators such as the cultural or social povertytoday they are less able to describe a phenomenon which appears rather transversal.
The counter it will be located in via Maroncelli, in the station area, the nerve center of arrival for all public transport and therefore easily accessible, as well as not connoted from a health point of view, like an outpatient clinic in a hospital. Previously, there was the headquarters of the “Esordi” program, dedicated to early interception of psychosis in adolescence. They will be able to freely access it i young people in the 16-24 age group that they should feel the need.
There they will find health workers from child neuropsychiatry, from the pathological addiction service and from mental health tout court, who will be able to listen to their discomfort and then direct them towards the right care.
“The counter – Cambria explains – it will be used to read the person’s state of suffering, giving meaning based on the entity: if a clinical entity will emerge, as in the case of real syndromes already organized (depression, generalized anxiety disorder, personality disorder, abusive conduct of substances, just to give a few examples), will be treated clinically, while if non-specific signals emerge that put together allow us to outline a picture of stress and discomfort, then an adequate response will be offered. Before a real disorder is structured there is always a phase of suffering: with this counter we want to bet on primary prevention”.
The door could accommodate in the future also the family members of individual childrenbecause problems often arise from relational difficulties within the family and therefore it is necessary to interface with that too, but for the first phase, access is dedicated to young people.
According to UNICEF 2021 reportwith reference to Italy, one in 7 teenagers aged 10 to 19 presents symptoms of anxiety and depression. Translated into practical terms, it means that in a school class there are on average 3 people with mental illness.
“The problem – Cambria explains – in addition to the symptoms themselves, it is a “role”, because those who experience them tend to isolate themselves and lose their role, which for young people in that age group is often the school one. You risk leaving your studies and undermining the foundations of your future. Furthermore, if the disorder is not addressed, it tends to structure itself to the point of resulting in personality disorder. So what was an episodic discomfort risks becoming chronic, affecting the future functioning of that person ”.
Returning to the data, according to Istat in 2020 the Neet (acronym for Not in Education, Employment or Training, that is, those who do not study or work) in Italy have exceeded 3 million. “In this case – Cambria comments – we are talking about the 19/35 age bracket, so the results of a growing situation are already visible. These are people who become “without role”, without employment in society, those that Michele Serra defines in his novel, The Recliners “.
But the pandemic? How much it affected about this explosion of youth psychic distress? According to Dr. Cambria was not decisive, at least on the number of new cases, while she exasperated the symptoms.
“I say this with the data in hand – Cambria comments – which illustrate how in 2020, in full lockdown in Ravenna, there were 167 cases, the year before 211 and the year after 228. Paradoxically, there was a moment in which the boy’s isolation found value. First he was told not to stay at the computer, then to stay there, to attend school lessons and homework. It is as if at a certain point, with the explosion of the pandemic, the feeling of the individual has become the common one. In reality, however, the situation worsened as soon as the lockdown was interrupted, because at that point the boy who previously lived an ambivalent situation between having to stay and not being at the PC, having had this type of pass, then found himself even more misfit in the new context. Our impression is that in the lokcdown phase the isolation was not experienced in a traumatic way, but it acted as a channel for a path that had already begun many years earlier and that when the pandemic was unlocked it was expressed in a more evident way. . The pandemic in itself has increased the severity of symptoms but not the number of cases ”.
And the Hikikomori? Do they still exist?
“With the term we have come to indicate a generic addiction to computers or social networks, but it is good to distinguish – specifies the doctor -: there are situations of this type, which lead to a real withdrawal from “real” life, but in other cases the computer or the social network, in a strongly isolated person, represent the only channel of contact with reality. I specify this because this massive diffusion of hikikomori has led to a demonization of the technological tool, which has put in even more difficulty young people who were already in difficulty. Sometimes, spending many hours playing video games represents, even if in an inadequate way, the boy’s social life. If that aspect is taken away from him, he faces the total annihilation of the person ”.
Can the family, the school do anything?
“Absolutely yes – Cambria closes -, we are trying to rethink ourselves, with regional projects as well, such as “Schools that produce health” where we tighten up on some guidelines for the good mental health of children and we try to work openly on these. Since the situation is of widespread unease, it is necessary to start from the main socialization places of young people ”.