Coping strategies and perception of the after-pandemic future of Italians

In this paper, we aim to understand how Italians perceive their after Covid-19 future and if and how this perception can be strengthened so to make their future as effective as possible. To this purpose, we analysed the data collected at a sample of Italian adults. The survey was conducted from May 2021 to May 2022, using mainly computer-assisted web-based interviews (CAWI) and social media participation. A total of 1,192 respondents completed the electronic questionnaire. Since significant differences were found according to age, two analyses were performed, the first on the whole sample and the other on two age groups (18-34 and 35-90 years). To model the hypothesised relations, we used statistical multivariate techniques (segmentation analysis and artificial neural networks). The results show that gender, age, occupational status, health experience with Covid-19, physical and psychological damages caused by the pandemic and some indicators of psychological disorders, daily lifestyle and proactivity play an important role to detect the variability of future perception. Though, some of the significant relationships between Italians’ perception of their future and the personal and social variables selected as predictors show an unexpected direction.