Introduction: With the advent of Covid-19, Italian university students were overwhelmed by fear of the pandemic and the social restrictions of the lockdown phase, with all didactic activity provided online. These stress factors caused people to experience psychological problems and/or the aggravation of pre-existing mental symptomatology. Psychological support is, therefore, important for the university-student population. Aims: (1) Analyzing the psychological difficulties and mental problems relative to lockdown from Covid-19 of students who asked for help from the Center of Psychological Counseling of the University of Salerno. (2) Describing the online services of the university’s psychological counseling treatment. Participants: 266 university students, but only 49 were undergoing psychological treatment during the Covid-19 lockdown at the center. Methods: (1) Semistructured interview; (2) Questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic information and ad hoc questions; and (3) Scl-90-r test. Results and Conclusions: Aim 1: The main results highlight high levels of anxiety and stress, concentration disorders, and psychosomatization. In several cases, there was a reactivation of previous traumas and sleep was found qualitatively compromised. Aim 2: Counseling services included telephone listening activities, online psychological interviews, psychoeducational groups for interventions of anxiety management, and workshops on study methods conducted in small groups. The online counseling intervention, in times of emergency, increased the resilience and identified any psychological problems in order to implement timely management.
Social support can influence the perceptions of individual and social well-being for university students. We sought to verify whether the perceptions of social support correlate with the manifestation of clinical symptoms in young university students. A total of 26 participants, 58% female and 42% male, between the ages of 19 and 27 were included. The following tests were administered: SCL-90-R – scale for the self-evaluation of general psychopathology and MSPSS – self-assessment scale for the perception of social support. The students who perceived low levels of social support had high levels of clinical symptomatology (especially for internalised disorders). The index for a high intensity of symptoms Positive Symptom Total is correlated with a low level of perceived social support.
Keywords: Clinical symptomatology, perceived social support, university students.
As the literature clearly shows, supporting the development of reflective awareness skills is undoubtedly an important element in learning processes. In psychology, multiple theoretical approaches and research work have delved into the study of what is termed implicit knowledge. In particular, the relationship between human activity (in terms of actions, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and reasoning) and different levels of awareness is a relevant subject of analysis that we consider as the core of this paper. In order to deepen our understanding of the concepts of awareness and reflexive activity, we refer to Pierre Vermersch’s psycho-phenomenological approach and Piaget’s theory of cognitive awareness. In this paper, we aim to show the use of the reflective approach centered on the elicitation of specific lived experiences. The objective is to promote in students a process of awareness of their activity and their role within the university context. Two students case studies from the University of Salerno took part in the research. The method used was based on narrative interviews that makes use of some techniques and principles of elicitation interviews, a conversational approach that supports the participant in focusing and describing a specific experience. The interviewer guides subjects, without induction, through the transition from the implicit of lived experience (particularly action) to the explicit of reflected awareness of that action. The data collected show how reflective activity by means of guided evocations of lived experiences helped participants become aware of how some distortions and irrational thoughts (related to the self and context) negatively affected them during the activities. The reflective work fostered by the elicitation of experiences often allows for enhanced self-awareness; the subject takes ownership of the action, analyzes it, and understands the difficulties.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.