Stay home, stay safe, stay green: The role of gardening activities on mental health during the Covid-19 home confinement

《Stay home, stay safe, stay green: The role of gardening activities on mental health during the Covid-19 home confinement》

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作者: Annalisa Theodorou;Angelo Panno;Giuseppe Carrus;Giuseppe Alessio Carbone;Chiara Massullo;Claudio Imperatori

作者单位: Department of Education, Experimental Psychology Laboratory, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy;Department of Human Science, Cognitive and Clinical Psychology Laboratory, European University of Rome, Rome, Italy;Department of Education, Experimental Psychology Laboratory, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy;Department of Human Science, Cognitive and Clinical Psychology Laboratory, European University of Rome, Rome, Italy

摘要: Social distancing and home confinement during the first wave of Covid-19 have been essential to helping governments to flatten the infection curve but raised concerns on possible negative consequences such as prolonged isolation or sedentary lifestyles. In this scenario, gardening activities have been identified as a plausible tool to buffer the mental health consequences of forced home confinement. In this paper, we investigate the relation between gardening and psychopathological distress during the lockdown of the first wave of Covid-19 in Italy. It is hypothesized that engagement in gardening activities promotes psychological health, through a reduction of Covid-related stress. An online survey was administered through sharing using social media to N = 303 participants during the March-May 2020 lockdown in Italy, measuring Covid-19 related distress, psychopathological distress, engagement in gardening activities plus a series of socio-demographic and residential covariates. As expected, a mediation model tested using a bootstrapping procedure showed that gardening is related to lower psychopathological distress through decreased Covid-19 related distress. Interestingly, results also showed that psychopathological distress was higher for women and unmarried respondents, and negatively associated with age and square meters per person at home. The theoretical and practical implications for social policies contrasting the Covid-19 pandemic are discussed.