To measure the severity of depressive symptoms we adopted the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) [24], one of the most widely recognized as well as valid and reliable screening tests for depression. Participants must rate their agreement with each statement on a 4-point Likert scale (0 = not at all; 3 = severely) referring to the preceding two weeks. Each of the 21 items of the BDI-II corresponding to a symptom of depression is summed to give a single score. The BDI-II total score ranges from 0 to 63. Consistently with previous validation studies, we adopted a cut-off score of >13 to detect the likelihood of presence of depression [24].