Italian Web-based Cross-sectional Survey on COVID-19

The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that started in late December 2019 in the Hubei province of China caused millions of cases worldwide in just a few months, and evolved into a real pandemic. However, only approximately 20% of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients required intensive on sub-intensice medical care and the remained experience mild or subclinical form of the disease that did not require hospital admission and a relatively high percentage (40 to 45%) remained asymptomatic. Understanding the occurrence of SARS-CoV-2-like infectious in a large non-hospitalized population, when the epidemic peak was occurring in Italy, is of paramount importance but data are scarce. The goal of this research project is to estimate the number of suspected cases of COVID-19 and to investigate the role of the potential factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in a large Italian sample of respondents living in Italy during the lockdown (started in Italy on 9 March 2020). EPICOVID19 is an Italian countrywide self-administered cross-sectional web-based survey on adult volunteers launched on April 13, 2020. The on-line questionnaire has been developed starting from the available literature and implemented using an open source platform focusing on beahvioural and clinical features of participants.