*2.2. Procedure*

The participants involved in the study had taken part in a previous study about three months before the pandemic, providing the availability to be contacted for future studies. About 200 people were invited to respond to a new online questionnaire during the lockdown and 98 people answered the new questionnaire. The first administration of the test protocol took place about three months before the outbreak of the pandemic, between November and December 2019. For the first assessment the participants were enrolled using snowball sampling, and subjects were invited to participate in a study of personality and emotion regulation strategies. The surveys were made available through an online platform where participants gave their informed consent before completing the self-administered questionnaire and indicating their willingness to be contacted for a follow-up. For the second assessment during imposed lockdown in Italy (in April 2020) the participants were invited to repeat the compilation of the questionnaire. However, considering the difficult period the world was facing, in the second compilation there was an additional questionnaire which assessed mental and physical symptomatology and asked participants to share how they felt during the global health emergency lockdown. The survey protocol received ethical approval from the Department Ethics Committee.
