Since March 2020, Italy has been facing the COVID-19 outbreak, soon after the outbreak in China, slightly before other world countries. The Italian government had enacted a strict quarantine in the attempt to reduce the contagion. Fear of personal and relatives’ contagion, and worries for physical health prompted social distancing and isolation. The resulting economic difficulties presented a wealth of highly distressing factors [
1]. For example, it is well known that quarantine itself may produce negative psychological effects including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger [
2]. It is likely that suicide and other dangerous behaviours may increase [
1,
3]. A recent review revealed a high prevalence of psychiatric symptoms in general population during COVID-19 pandemic and pointed out that we all are still unaware of long-term outcomes [
4]. There is a clear consensus among experts that mental health status during pandemic outbreaks should be assessed and mental health problems addressed [
1,
5]. This is particularly true regarding fragile populations such as health workers, psychiatric patients and youths [
1,
2,
6]. We here focus on the latter. Adolescents may face stressors such as fears of infection, frustration and boredom, inadequate information, lack of in-person contact with classmates, friends, and teachers, lack of personal space at home, and family financial loss to a greater degree than adults [
7]. The routes to psychiatric disorders usually pass through adverse events and traumas. Thus, it is imperative to empirically study the psychopathological effects of a pandemic outbreak, such as COVID-19, and the consequences of its related safety measures, such as social distancing and quarantine. This, in fact, would allow planning of possible interventions to prevent negative psychological consequences in the event of future pandemics. In a recent study focusing the adolescent Chinese population, Zhou et al. [
8] revealed a prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and a combination of depressive and anxiety symptoms during COVID-19 outbreak of 43.7, 37.4, and 31.3%, respectively, much higher than estimates usually reported in China in pre-COVID era. Another study, not limited to adolescents, but including young adults, reported that nearly 40% of youths are prone to psychological problems [
9]. In Italy, a study on adults reported a high prevalence of those suffering from high or very high levels of distress, with females being more susceptible [
10]. Another study on adults reported that about 38% displayed mild to severe likelihood of psychological distress, with cyclothymic, anxious and depressive temperaments being risk factors [
11]. Here, we aimed at expanding these findings by providing more evidence related to adolescents, and by contextually and thoroughly assessing environmental and psychological factors that may be linked to the raise of emotional symptoms (state anxiety and depressive symptoms). We collected the data between April 25th and May 13th 2020, which strictly corresponds to the highest level of social restrictions imposed by Italian Government (full lockdown; see also [
12]), in order to catch the putative psychological impact of both the strictest quarantine measures and the greatest exposure to the pandemic outbreak. We hypothesize a higher prevalence of emotional symptoms during this period compared to previously reported results. Also, based on previous studies [
13,
14], we hypothesize that a previous general tendency to psychopathology, unfavourable environment, such as an uncomfortable and “not connected” quarantine living context, and acute psychological changes, such as lifestyle changes and higher worries about COVID-19, could be factors related to emotional symptoms.