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Hikikomori (Severe Social Withdrawal) in Italian Adolescents: Clinical Features and Follow-Up

Severe social withdrawal, including staying alone in one’s bedroom, non-attendance at school or work, and minimal or absent social contacts, sometimes only through electronic devices, can be found in several psychiatric disorders, or in a ‘primary’ form, firstly defined in Japan as ‘Hikikomori’. The...

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Autores principales: Tolomei, Greta, Masi, Gabriele, Milone, Annarita, Fantozzi, Pamela, Viglione, Valentina, Narzisi, Antonio, Berloffa, Stefano
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10605260/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37892332
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children10101669
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author Tolomei, Greta
Masi, Gabriele
Milone, Annarita
Fantozzi, Pamela
Viglione, Valentina
Narzisi, Antonio
Berloffa, Stefano
author_facet Tolomei, Greta
Masi, Gabriele
Milone, Annarita
Fantozzi, Pamela
Viglione, Valentina
Narzisi, Antonio
Berloffa, Stefano
author_sort Tolomei, Greta
collection PubMed
description Severe social withdrawal, including staying alone in one’s bedroom, non-attendance at school or work, and minimal or absent social contacts, sometimes only through electronic devices, can be found in several psychiatric disorders, or in a ‘primary’ form, firstly defined in Japan as ‘Hikikomori’. The distinction between primary and secondary forms is questionable, as it prevalently depends on the quality of psychiatric assessment. To date, few studies specifically explored Hikikomori in an adolescent population outside Japan. The aim of the present study is to describe clinical features of a consecutive group of 80 referred youth (13 to 18 years, 57 males) with social isolation, of which 40 were followed up on for 4–6 months, to characterize clinical features and outcome. All the participants presented psychiatric comorbid disorders, prevalently anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and autism spectrum disorder. Suicidality (ideation and behavior) was reported in 32.5% of the participants, and 20% of the participants attempted suicide. More than half of the participants exceeded the cut-off of the Internet Addiction Test, and 42.4% met the criteria for the Internet Gaming Disorder. At the follow-up appointment, an improvement of social withdrawal was reported in 75% of the sample; 67.5% of the participants significantly improved according to the CGI-improvement scale; and 55% of the participants had an improvement of functioning according to the C-GAS. Our findings suggest that Hikikomori is a transnosographic entity, with high rates of suicidality and Internet addiction, and that can it improve when it is timely diagnosed and treated.
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spelling pubmed-106052602023-10-28 Hikikomori (Severe Social Withdrawal) in Italian Adolescents: Clinical Features and Follow-Up Tolomei, Greta Masi, Gabriele Milone, Annarita Fantozzi, Pamela Viglione, Valentina Narzisi, Antonio Berloffa, Stefano Children (Basel) Article Severe social withdrawal, including staying alone in one’s bedroom, non-attendance at school or work, and minimal or absent social contacts, sometimes only through electronic devices, can be found in several psychiatric disorders, or in a ‘primary’ form, firstly defined in Japan as ‘Hikikomori’. The distinction between primary and secondary forms is questionable, as it prevalently depends on the quality of psychiatric assessment. To date, few studies specifically explored Hikikomori in an adolescent population outside Japan. The aim of the present study is to describe clinical features of a consecutive group of 80 referred youth (13 to 18 years, 57 males) with social isolation, of which 40 were followed up on for 4–6 months, to characterize clinical features and outcome. All the participants presented psychiatric comorbid disorders, prevalently anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and autism spectrum disorder. Suicidality (ideation and behavior) was reported in 32.5% of the participants, and 20% of the participants attempted suicide. More than half of the participants exceeded the cut-off of the Internet Addiction Test, and 42.4% met the criteria for the Internet Gaming Disorder. At the follow-up appointment, an improvement of social withdrawal was reported in 75% of the sample; 67.5% of the participants significantly improved according to the CGI-improvement scale; and 55% of the participants had an improvement of functioning according to the C-GAS. Our findings suggest that Hikikomori is a transnosographic entity, with high rates of suicidality and Internet addiction, and that can it improve when it is timely diagnosed and treated. MDPI 2023-10-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10605260/ /pubmed/37892332 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children10101669 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tolomei, Greta
Masi, Gabriele
Milone, Annarita
Fantozzi, Pamela
Viglione, Valentina
Narzisi, Antonio
Berloffa, Stefano
Hikikomori (Severe Social Withdrawal) in Italian Adolescents: Clinical Features and Follow-Up
title Hikikomori (Severe Social Withdrawal) in Italian Adolescents: Clinical Features and Follow-Up
title_full Hikikomori (Severe Social Withdrawal) in Italian Adolescents: Clinical Features and Follow-Up
title_fullStr Hikikomori (Severe Social Withdrawal) in Italian Adolescents: Clinical Features and Follow-Up
title_full_unstemmed Hikikomori (Severe Social Withdrawal) in Italian Adolescents: Clinical Features and Follow-Up
title_short Hikikomori (Severe Social Withdrawal) in Italian Adolescents: Clinical Features and Follow-Up
title_sort hikikomori (severe social withdrawal) in italian adolescents: clinical features and follow-up
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10605260/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37892332
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children10101669
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