The role of worries on young adults’ mental health and future representation

According to recent developments in the literature, young adults are affected by a decline in the quality of mental health as a consequence of the pandemic trauma. Hence, the constant exposure to potentially traumatic collective events, such as the war in Europe and the climate crisis could play a role in young adults’ ability to be projected in a positive vision of the future and, more generally, on the quality of their psychological well-being. The present study aims to delve into the role of collective and personal worries on future vision and mental health. In doing so, data from 310 young Italian adults (49% male and 51% female, ages 18-30 years, M=21.9, SD=2.6) have been collected via a web-based survey including the following scales: The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), the Worry Domains Scale (WDQ), the Climate Change Worry Scale (CCWS), the Fear of War Scale (FOWARS), the Dark Future Scale (DFS) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21). The descriptive results show a moderate level of pathological worry (M=44.4; SD=8.8) and the predominance of worries related to Lack of Confidence (M=10.4; SD=5.2), Aimless Future (M=11.6; SD=5.1) and Work (M=10.2; SD=4.7). In addition, they show slightly above average levels of worry with respect to climate change (M=3.1; SD=.9) and fear of war (M=3.2; SD=.9) as well as extremely severe to moderate levels of Anxiety (M=17.7; SD=10.9), Depression (M=20.8; SD=10.8) and Stress (M=25.6; SD=10.0). Results from ANOVA show that women reported significantly higher scores than men of Anxiety, Depression, Stress, pathological worry and future anxiety. Several hierarchical multiple regression models were run in order to explore the role of worries on the representation of future anxiety (R2=.59; p < .001), stress (R2=.44; p < .001), anxiety (R2=.42; p < .001) and depression (R2=.45; p < .001). The results show that the conceptualization of worry, intended as both pathological and non-pathological, individual and collective, has a strong impact on young adults’ mental health and future representation. The results also highlight the importance of worry as a variable worth investigating in psychological research and interventions aiming at improving youth well-being.