Challenges, opportunities, and future perspectives

Development and validation of the Environmental Confinement Stressors Scale (ECSS-20)

“…For example, there is ample evidence on how contexts of physical and social isolation (i.e., plague, influenza, cholera, leprosy, or others) and subjective social isolation are associated with negative impacts on mental health ( Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009 ; Cacioppo and Cacioppo, 2014 ; Cacioppo et al, 2015 ; Bzdok and Dunbar, 2022 ; Gilbar et al, 2022 ). The growth of such literature has been exponential during and following the COVID-19 pandemic ( Jakovljevic et al, 2020 ; Mukhtar, 2020 ; Wilder-Smith and Freedman, 2020 ; Clair et al, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2021 ; Neville et al, 2021 ; Takian et al, 2021 ), highlighting negative psychological impacts (i.e., distress, anxiety, depression, and high levels of stress) that are primarily attributed to side effects of confinement ( Cuadra-Martínez et al, 2020 ; Gloster et al, 2020 ; Kujawa et al, 2020 ; Kokkinos et al, 2022 ; Nanath et al, 2022 ). These effects, which have been reported in all types of populations (e.g., children, adolescents, adults, pregnant women, senior citizens, among others) ( Manchia et al, 2022 ), would be explained by the increase in environmental stressors and the variability of coping resources ( Verdolini et al, 2021 ; McLaughlin et al, 2022 ; Tracy et al, 2022 ; Yang et al, 2022 ; Delhey et al, 2023 ).…”