Do Attachment, Educator Characteristics and Youth-Educator Relationship Matter in 6-Month Changes of Institutionalized Adolescents?

Objective: This longitudinal study involved youths in residential care due to previous adverse experiences and their educators, aiming to investigate the role of youths and educators' attachment, educators' psychopathology, and the quality of youth-educator relationship on change scores of youths' symptoms and youth-educator relationship security over 6 months.

Method: Participants were 36 institutionalized youths (M = 16.50 ± 2.

Adverse childhood experiences and psychological maladjustment in adolescence: The protective role of epistemic trust, mentalized affectivity, and reflective functioning.

Introduction: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are psychosocial factors acknowledged as significant contributors to health consequences later in adolescence, including psychological maladjustment. The research suggests that, at a transdiagnostic and transtheoretical level, working on restoring epistemic trust (ET), mentalized affectivity (MA), and reflective functioning (RF) in adolescents with ACEs assumes a central role in the therapeutic process. However, there are still few studies that attempted to investigate the specific role of these sociocognitive factors in the detrimental positive association between levels of experienced ACEs during childhood and psychological maladjustment in nonclinical adolescents.

Evaluation of two different remineralising toothpastes in children with drug-controlled asthma and allergic rhinitis: a randomised clinical trial.

Aim: To compare the efficacy of two remineralising toothpastes in children suffering from asthma and allergic rhinitis after a 6-month study.

Methods: 40 patients aged between 6-14 years with enamel demineralisations were enrolled for the study at the Unit of Dental Hygiene of the University of Pavia (Italy). The following indices were collected: Schiff air index (SAI), plaque index (PI), bleeding on probing (BoP), salivary pH, Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE), susceptibility index (SI) for hard and soft tissues' pathologies, and decayed missing filled teeth (DMFT).

The catcher in the mind: validation of the brief-mentalized affectivity scale for adolescents in the Italian population.

The concept of mentalized affectivity (MA) encompasses the dimensions of identifying, processing, and expressing emotions and describes the process of making sense of and reevaluating one's affects in light of autobiographical memory. This construct was developed within the theoretical framework of mentalization and, due to its interpersonal nature, added further complexity to the emotion regulation construct. This research aimed to examine the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Brief-Mentalized Affectivity Scale for adolescents (B-MAS-A) on an Italian sample of young people (aged 13-19 years).

Through a relational lens: reflections about foster care experience in Italian emancipated foster youth.

The study aimed to investigate relational outcomes of Italian emancipated foster youth across open-ended reflections about their perceptions of their relationships with the biological and foster family, with partner and peers. A total of 26 Italian emancipated foster youth (19-25 years old) recruited by social services completed a single in-depth interview. A qualitative thematic analysis was selected for this study.

Investigating Functioning Profile of Adolescents with Anorexia before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study on Mentalizing, Alexithymia, and Impulsiveness.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) usually emerges in adolescence when important changes occur in cognitive, emotional, and social processes. Mentalizing, alexithymia, and impulsiveness represent key dimensions for the understanding and interpretation of psychological difficulties in AN. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted adolescents with AN, showing a worsening of the disease.

Emerging adults facing the COVID-19 pandemic: emotion dysregulation, mentalizing, and psychological symptoms.

Settled in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the present short-term longitudinal study aims to investigate the relation between emotion dysregulation, mentalizing (both certainty and uncertainty about mental states), and psychological symptoms in a sample of 83 emerging adults (M = 22.18 years, SD = 4.36) over a continuous period started with COVID-19 spreads.

Psychological Counseling Service "Together" at University of Genoa: Students' Psychological Profile in Pre and Post Pandemic.

The present explorative study aims to analyze the profiles of students seeking help in the two areas (emotion/relation or learning areas) of a psychological counseling service for students at the University of Genoa to better understand their request for support in pre- and post-pandemic periods. A total of 229 university students seeking for help from November 2018 to December 2021 completed a psychological battery investigating emotion regulation difficulties and pathological domains of personality (students taken in charge by the emotion/relation area) or motivation issues and anxiety and resilience levels (students taken in charge by the learning area). Regarding the emotion/relation area, results show that problems in emotion dysregulation, and especially in regulating positive emotions, are associated to several pathological domains of personality, such as Psychoticism, Antagonism, Disinhibition, Detachment, and Negative Affectivity.

Parental Mentalizing during Middle Childhood: How Is the Adoption of a Reflective Stance Associated with Child's Psychological Outcomes?

This exploratory cross-sectional study attempts to understand the mechanisms underlying the role of parental mentalizing in a child's psychological functioning during middle childhood by using Parental Reflective Functioning (PRF) and Parental Insightfulness (PI) constructs. The main aims are to examine the role of PI and PRF as processes capable of influencing a child's psychological functioning in terms of emotional-behavioral difficulties and social-emotional competencies. Eighty-six community parents (48 mothers, 38 fathers) and their 50 children in middle childhood (Mage = 10.

Advancement in the child attachment interview and the child and adolescent reflective functioning scale using a PDM-2 framework: case reports.

The Child Attachment Interview (CAI) is a well-established semi-structured interview, widely used to identify attachment representations in middle childhood and adolescence. The application of the Child and Adolescent Reflective Functioning Scale (CRFS) to CAI narratives allows for an assessment of child mentalization, considered a strong predictor of attachment security. The 2nd edition of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-2) includes CAI and CRFS as valid and reliable assessment measures in order to assess the dominion of the Mental Functioning axis.

Physiological Factors Linking Insecure Attachment to Psychopathology: A Systematic Review.

Although many studies have documented associations between insecure attachment and psychopathology, attachment may not confer risk for psychopathology independently, but rather through its interaction with emotional, social, and biological factors. Understanding the variables through which attachment may lead to psychopathology is therefore important. Within this domain of research, the role of physiological factors is poorly investigated.

The Italian version of the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire: Validity within a sample of adolescents and associations with psychological problems and alexithymia.

Objectives: This study aims to test the psychometric proprieties of the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ) applied to younger (13-16 years) and older (17-20 years) Italian adolescents examining (1) the factorial structure of RFQ; (2) its invariance across age and sex; (3) correlations between RFQ subscale scores, as well as the associations of the RFQ with (4) psychological problems and alexithymia dimensions.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 593 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 20 years old recruited from the community within Italy. These participants completed the RFQ, Symptom Checklist-90, and Toronto Alexithymia Scale.

Improving the Appropriateness of Advanced Life Support Teams' Dispatch: A Before-After Study.

Background And Importance: The dispatch of Advanced Life Support (ALS) teams in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is still a hardly studied aspect of prehospital emergency logistics. In 2015, the dispatch algorithm of Emilia Est Emergency Operation Centre (EE-EOC) was implemented and the dispatch of ALS teams was changed from primary to secondary based on triage of dispatched vehicles for high-priority interventions when teams with Immediate Life Support (ILS) skills were dispatched.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the effects on the appropriateness of ALS teams' intervention and their employment time, and to compare sensitivity and specificity of the algorithm implementation.

Attachment representations to parents and emotional-behavioral problems: A comparison between children with type 1 diabetes mellitus and healthy children in middle childhood.

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D) is one of the most demanding chronic diseases for children and their families, since controlling diabetes involves a process of co-regulation with attachment figures. However, there is insufficient evidence in middle childhood on psychological mechanisms involved that might complicate the adaptation of these children. Therefore, 106 children ( = 31 with T1D and  = 75 as matched healthy group [HG]) aged 8 to 13 were assessed using the , the , and the measure of glycated hemoglobin.

Attachment representation to caregivers and mentalizing ability in early adolescents with primary headache.

Primary headache (PH) is a common somatic disorder in childhood with a strong impact in terms of quality of life. There are several risk factors related to the development of this disorder including environmental factors as attachment bonds. However, studies in this direction are relatively few and have often used self-report or semi-projective measures looking at the only maternal attachment.

Attachment representations in children with disruptive behavior disorders: A special focus on insecurity in middle childhood.

According to the emotional and social problems encountered in disruptive behaviour disorder (DBD), there is little available information regarding the attachment processes during middle childhood. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the attachment representations to both caregivers in a sample of 84 children, aged 8-12 years ( = 42 with a diagnosis of DBD;  = 42 as a comparison group). Attachment is assessed through the , a semi-structured interview that incorporates both narrative and behavioural assessments of attachment, permits the assessment of attachment representations using dimensional and categorical approaches, and allows for the detection of disorganisation to both parents individually.

Psychometric Properties of the Child Attachment Interview in Italian Context: A Focus on Normative and Specific Clinical Groups in School-Aged Children.

While attachment assessments developed for infancy and adulthood are well established, no such gold standard measure exists for school years, where measures are not yet sufficiently robust. Nevertheless, the last decade has witnessed some progress in this field with the development of the Child Attachment Interview (CAI), a semistructured interview designed to access children's mental representations of their attachment relationships. This study aimed to test the validity and reliability of the CAI for an Italian population, using a normative group and a clinical group of disruptive behavior disorder and somatic symptom disorder patients.

Assessing clinical and psychological features: who are patients showing a nocebo re-action during the drug challenge test?

The nocebo reaction, namely the undesirable effect of an inert substance (placebo), is a phenomenon rarely investigated in literature. A better knowledge of this reaction may help clinicians in the management of these patients in clinical practice. Patients with drug adverse reactions (ADR) undergoing the drug challenge test are an ideal model for studying the nocebo effect, and the study aims to investigate their clinical and psychological features.

Attachment and reflective functioning in children with somatic symptom disorders and disruptive behavior disorders.

Our goal in conducting this study was to examine whether children with somatic symptom disorders (SSD) and disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) have higher rates of insecure or disorganized attachment and difficulties in mentalizing (operationalized as reflective functioning) as compared to a control group. Participants were 131 children (8-15 years) spanning two groups-a clinical group (n = 85), comprised of children fitting the criteria of our target diagnostic classifications (SSD: N = 45; DBD: N = 40), as well as a comparison group of healthy control children (n = 46). Children completed the Child Attachment Interview, which was later coded by reliable raters for attachment security and reflective functioning (RF).

Spinal Dural Arteriovenous Fistulas: Clinical Results and Quality of Life Assessment with Surgical Treatment as a Crucial Therapy. The Joint Experience of Two Centers.

Objective: Dorsal intradural arteriovenous fistulas (AVFs) consist of a direct connection between a radicular feeding artery and the coronal venous plexus; this direct connection leads to arterialization of the venous plexus, venous congestion, and myelopathy. Controversy still exists regarding the best treatment modality of spinal dural AVFs. Surgical disconnection of spinal dural AVFs is a straightforward procedure with a high success rate and virtually no risk of recurrence or incomplete treatment.

Domestic Violence in Separated Couples in Italian Context: Communalities and Singularities of Women and Men Experiences.

Relationship breakdown and separation represent a critical aspect in domestic violence. Few studies have investigated domestic violence in separated couples. Moreover, there is a need for a more in depth analysis of gender differences that could enhance the comprehension of the phenomenon.

A Long-Term Psychological Observation in an Adolescent Affected with Gardner Diamond Syndrome.

Gardner-Diamond syndrome (GDS) is an uncommon disease clinically characterized by a wide spectrum of psycho-emotive symptoms associated with painful ecchymoses/purpuric lesions and positivity of auto-erythrocyte sensitization skin test. Herein, a perspective clinical and psychological observation of an adolescent GDS is firstly reported focusing on her psychological features long-term monitored for a 1-year period. The administration of a standardized tools battery allowed us to define psychological features of the young patient over time and to monitored clinical course and response to treatment.

Emotion Dysregulation Mediates the Relation between Mindfulness and Rejection Sensitivity.

Background: The role of rejection sensitivity (RS; the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact to implied or overt interpersonal rejection) in psychopathology has mainly been studied with regard to borderline personality disorder (BPD). In the present study, we first sought to extend previous evidence of heightened RS in a clinical group with psychiatric disorders other than BPD, when compared with a community sample. Then, we tested whether emotion dysregulation and mindfulness were associated with RS in both sample, further hypothesizing that emotion dysregulation would mediate the relation between mindfulness deficits and RS.

When parenting fails: alexithymia and attachment states of mind in mothers of female patients with eating disorders.

Introduction: In recent years alexithymia and attachment theory have been recognized as two parallel research lines trying to improve the information on the development and maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). However, no research has analyzed these constructs among patients' families. In this study we compared alexithymia and attachment in mothers of patients with EDs and a control group.