Anxiety, panic attacks, fears. It is these “black monsters” that push Italians to seek a psychological support. THE anxiety disorders they affect almost two and a half million people and the demand for treatment has increased by 5% compared to 2022.
It gives us an insight into Italians’ relationship to mental well-being ProntoPro, a professional search engine that connects clients and professionals. However, other discomfort states are also among the most common reasons that lead to seeking a specialist: Personality problems such as anger and low self-esteem affect half of users. 32% seek counseling instead for relationship problems. 29% do it because of depression, 20% because of trauma, 18% because of sexual or relationship problems, 12% because of eating disorders and 7% because of addictions. The remaining 26% seek generic advice.
It should be noted that requests for psychological support registered on the portal are based on a multiple-choice question and have no diagnostic value. In fact, it is not certain that there is anything else behind asking for support for anxiety. At the same time, as is well known, it is more difficult to seek help for problems such as addictions or eating disorderswhich are increasingly increasing among the very young, so much so that the age at which they are cared for has significantly decreased.
Age groups
The survey also offers us percentages onage of users. In 2023, girls and boys under the age of 25 are mainly looking for support: this is almost half of the applicants, 44%. A number that has increased by 6% compared to the previous year. THE Millennials (26-35 years old) generate 26% of requests for psychological support, followed by people aged 36-50 with 14%. There was a 3% decrease in applications from this age group compared to 2022. People aged 10 to 18 accounted for 8% of applications, down 2% from the previous year. Over-51s are the least likely to require support, with only 7% of requests, indicating a tendency to neglect mental health in this age group.
People under 18 seek help in recovery from an eating disorder, people over 50 from depression
By cross-referencing user behavior according to age and recorded needs, some specifics emerge. Meantime It is children between the ages of 10 and 18 who most often seek therapy to recover from an eating disorder. 16% of them expressed a need, which is 4 percentage points more than the 12% national average of those seeking psychological support. People between the ages of 26 and 35 seek help especially for addiction recovery and relationship problems. However, they are between 36 and 50 a few problems the first reason that makes users seek advice. Finally, the important thing is that for young people between 19 and 25, almost all problems seem to be more pronounced than in other age groups, but those related to anxiety, stress, panic attacks and fear record a higher percentage than others (64%), but also to personality problems (52%) and trauma (23%). In this regard, there is another signal that emerges from the data collected by the companies ProntoPro: the demand for digital consultations is decreasing. A fact that could communicate the search for human contact by younger people who feel less comfortable talking to a psychologist at home and online.