Publications by authors named "Castelnuovo G"

: the aim of the current cross-sectional study is to explore and compare the emotional and behavioural conditions of children and adolescents with short stature (i.e., familial short stature and constitutional delay of growth), idiopathic growth hormone deficiency (GHD), and normal height.

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: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a rare, genetically determined neurodevelopmental disorder. Individuals with PWS face numerous challenges that significantly impact their psychological well-being and quality of life, ultimately limiting their personal and social functioning. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of life and psychological well-being in a sample of Italian adult patients with PWS compared to an age-matched control group of normal-weight Italian individuals.

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Disgust is a powerful emotion that evolved to protect us from contamination and diseases; it also cores to very human feelings, such as shame. In anorexia nervosa, most of the knowledge on disgust regards food. However, disgust can be elicited by varied drivers, including body-related self-disgust, which may be more central to this condition.

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Article Synopsis
  • Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a rare genetic disorder causing various cognitive, emotional, and behavioral challenges, impacting both individuals with PWS and their caregivers significantly.
  • The study investigates the psychological health of caregivers of adults with PWS, using assessments like DASS-21 and PGWBI to compare their mental well-being to that of the general population.
  • Results indicated that caregivers experience higher levels of depression and stress compared to the general population, with their overall psychological well-being being poorer than that of individuals with PWS, highlighting the need for targeted support for caregivers.
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  • The study investigates how spatial disorientation and behavioral issues in spatial cognition manifest in prodromal Alzheimer's disease (AD) compared to normal aging and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
  • A sample of 58 elderly participants, including those with mild cognitive impairment, subjective cognitive decline, and healthy controls, was tested using the Detour Navigation Test and smartphone GPS tracking to assess wrong turns and gait patterns.
  • Results indicated that MCI patients made more wrong turns than the other groups, and the presence of the ApoE-ε4 genotype was linked to poorer spatial processing and slower gait in real-world navigation tasks.
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Introduction: Internet-based self-help interventions have the potential to help people address their emotional needs at relatively low costs. However, if the system does not offer optimal functions, it could reduce end-user adherence and satisfaction with treatment and compromise the effectiveness of the program. This study evaluated the usability of an Internet-based self-help intervention for emotional self-management among the general population of Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Plant-based diets (PBDs) are gaining attention as a sustainable and health-conscious alternative for managing various chronic conditions, including metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). In the absence of pharmacological treatments, exploring the potential of lifestyle modifications to improve biochemical and pathological outcomes becomes crucial. The adoption of PBDs has demonstrated beneficial effects such as weight control, increased metabolic health and improved coexisting diseases.

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Objectives: The main objective of the study is to investigate the short-term efficacy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on the simultaneous modification of biological indicators of risk and psychological well-being in patients with coronary heart disease attending cardiac rehabilitation (CR).

Design: This was a two-arm randomised controlled trial comparing a brief, manualised, ACT-based intervention with usual care (UC).

Setting: The study was conducted in an outpatient CR unit in Italy.

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  • The study investigates how deficits in visuospatial long-term memory can forecast navigation difficulties in older adults as they progress from normal aging to Alzheimer's disease (AD).
  • It involved assessing 72 participants, including those with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), subjective cognitive decline (SCD), and healthy controls, using a navigation test and a learning task to measure performance.
  • Results indicated that higher performance in the learning task correlated with fewer navigation mistakes and hesitations, suggesting the potential of the learning test as a tool for evaluating navigational abilities in individuals at risk for AD.
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: Sarcopenic obesity (SO) is the combination of excess fat, skeletal muscle and muscular strength/function deficit. The ESPEN/EASO have proposed new diagnostic criteria, but the SO prevalence in patients with severe obesity remains to be established. The aim of this study was to establish the SO prevalence in a large cohort of inpatients with obesity, considering sex, age, BMI, type, and number of concomitant diseases.

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Background: Among the dysfunctional eating behaviors associated with excessive food intake, a construct that is gaining increasing attention is grazing-the constant, continuous, compulsive, and repetitive consumption of small/moderate amounts of food. Furthermore, in some cases, grazing seems to indicate a dependence on food and/or eating. Currently, the Repetitive Eating Questionnaire (Rep(Eat)-Q) appears to be the only questionnaire that comprehensively measures grazing, including its repetitive and compulsive eating component.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the psychological conditions of 92 Italian adolescents (31 boys, 61 girls) with obesity, focusing on their emotional states, psychological adjustment, and eating disorder symptoms while enrolled in a weight reduction program.
  • - Various psychological assessments were conducted, including the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Eating Attitude Test, revealing that girls reported more emotional difficulties and higher levels of depression and anxiety compared to boys, regardless of obesity severity.
  • - Results indicate that adolescents with eating disorder symptoms exhibited significantly worse emotional and psychological conditions, suggesting that treatment for obesity in this demographic should address not just physical health, but also emotional and behavioral challenges.
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Background: Gaining knowledge of the various reasons behind people's consumption of highly processed foods has the potential to enhance obesity prevention initiatives and open avenues to tailor treatment approaches for obesity and binge eating at a more personalized level. This contribution aimed to test the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Palatable Eating Motives Scale (PEMS-IT) in a community sample of Italian adults.

Methods: A confirmatory factor analysis was performed to test the factor structure of the Italian version of the PEMS (PEMS-IT) on a total of 616 respondents.

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Background: The Three Factor Eating Questionnaire-Revised 18 (TFEQ-R-18) is an extensively used questionnaire to measure three transdiagnostic features of eating behavior: cognitive restraint, uncontrolled eating, and emotional eating.

Objective: This research aims to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the TFEQ-R-18 in three large community samples.

Method: Cross-sectional research designs were employed.

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Food addiction (FA) and disordered eating behaviors related to obesity are gaining attention in clinical and research fields. The modified Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 (mYFAS2.

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Background: This study aimed to examine whether dyadic coping (DC) is associated with relationship satisfaction (RS) among couples facing cardiac diseases. Furthermore, the moderating role of both partners' anxiety and depression was tested.

Methods: One hundred cardiac patients (81.

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  • Spatial cognition impairment is one of the first signs of Alzheimer's disease, leading to spatial disorientation even in familiar areas, and there are few studies examining this in early stages of Alzheimer's using real-world testing.
  • The study involved 20 patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) due to AD and 20 age-matched controls, assessing their navigation abilities through a modified Detour Navigation Test (DNT-mv).
  • Results indicated that MCI patients made more wrong turns and hesitated more during navigation tasks, correlated with cardiac autonomic nervous system changes, highlighting the potential for using real-world navigation tasks to detect early signs of spatial disorientation in Alzheimer's.
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Background: The ever-increasing spread of Internet-based systems for common mental disorders has generated the need for brief online screening methods. This study aims to test the psychometric properties of the Web Screening Questionnaire (WSQ) to examine its suitability for screening for common mental health problems among a community sample of Italian adults.

Methods: A total of 1282 subjects (F = 819; mean age = 42.

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Spatial navigation (SN) has been reported to be one of the first cognitive domains to be affected in Alzheimer's disease (AD), which occurs as a result of progressive neuropathology involving specific brain areas. Moreover, the epsilon 4 isoform of apolipoprotein-E (APOE-ε4) has been associated with both sporadic and familial late-onset AD, and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) due to AD are more likely to progressively deteriorate. Spatial navigation performance will be examined on a sample of 76 community-dwelling senior citizens (25 healthy controls; 25 individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD); and 26 patients with MCI due to AD) via a virtual computer-based task (i.

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Background: Cognitive remediation therapy (CRT) for anorexia nervosa (AN) is an intervention specifically focused on addressing cognitive difficulties associated with the eating disorder. This systematic review of systematic reviews and meta-analysis aimed to provide a summary of the existing literature examining the efficacy of CRT in improving the neuropsychological, psychological, and clinical parameters of patients with AN.

Methods: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses were sought in electronic databases, encompassing studies that explored the impact of CRT on AN.

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Introduction: Childhood obesity is associated with poor psychological adjustment. Severely impacts the psychological adjustment of young patients. To assess the psychological functioning of children and adolescents, several questionnaires have been proposed so far.

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