The role of microRNAs in executive functions: a comprehensive review and bioinformatics analysis of human and animal studies.

In recent years, there has been a growing concern about the impact of academic pressure on adolescents’ mental health. The WHO has emphasized the urgent need to address academic pressure in the debate on the health and psychological well-being of young people []. Perceived academic pressure (or stress) is a broad and multifaceted concept for which there is no widely used definition or single measurement tool. Stress is generally defined as the feeling of being unable to cope with environmental demands. Academic stress, in particular, is a student’s perception of receiving unwelcome and unpleasant pressure within an educational setting []. A recent systematic review conceptualizes academic pressure as chronic stress related to workload, examinations, fear of failure, concerns about the future, expectations from parents, teachers, or oneself, as well as competition with peers or siblings []. In order to understand the relationship between perceived academic pressure and mental health, it is important to distinguish between objective academic pressure, referring to the measurable demands of the school system, and subjective academic pressure, referring to how students personally feel about these demands in relation to their coping resources. Evidence indicates that adolescents’ perception of academic pressure has increased in recent years, especially during the transition from late childhood to adolescence, when academic expectations intensify and school transitions occur [–] with a potential negative impact on educational engagement [, ]. This trend is particularly relevant within the Italian educational system, which is organized into primary school (ages 6–10), lower secondary school (ages 11–13), and upper secondary school (ages 14–19). Students face two major transitions at ages 11 and 14, involving new peer groups, increased academic expectations and more structured evaluation procedures, and formal grading begins early. The early introduction of curricular differentiation and the requirement to choose between academic and vocational tracks at age 14 contributes to a progressively stronger emphasis on performance and future orientation.