A pandemic is not just a medical phenomenon, but it affects individuals and society and causes physical, psychological, social and economic distress.
This is because it is a type of event capable of demonstrating, often in a very violent way, the vulnerability and fragility of our social systems and our psychological structure, and how often our technical-scientific, socio- community and personal.
In this article we have elaborated a review of the literature in order to understand the possible psychological consequences of the pandemic in progress, looking for material from three possible sources of information: situations with characteristics similar to those of the pandemic in progress (e.g. with social
distancing), events previous epidemics (e.g. SARS and MERS) and research carried out this year on the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic. From the information gathered, it emerged that the psychological consequences can also be very serious (e.g. Depression or Post-Traumatic Disorder), occur quickly and last long after the
events that produced them. Furthermore, it emerged that, despite the information and awareness gained in past or similar situations, not enough was done to prevent and deal with such adverse psychological consequences.