Publications by authors named "Heifa Ounalli"

Objective: To examine Dignity Therapy (DT) narratives in patients with severe mental illness (SMI) and a control group of cancer patients.

Methods: 12 patients with SMI (schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, sever personality disorders) and 12 patients with non-advanced cancer individually participated to DT interviews. DT was tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim and shaped into a narrative through a preliminary editing process.

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Very few studies have focused on the relationship between cognitive functions and clinical features in borderline personality disorder (BPD). Subjects with BPD and healthy controls were administered the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, Trail Making Test A and B, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-53) was used to assess the severity of current symptoms.

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Demographic changes have placed age-related mental health disorders at the forefront of public health challenges over the next three decades worldwide. Within the context of cognitive impairment and neurocognitive disorders among elderly people, the fragmentation of the self is associated with existential suffering, loss of meaning and dignity for the patient, as well as with a significant burden for the caregiver. Psychosocial interventions are part of a person-centered approach to cognitive impairment (including early stage dementia and dementia).

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Objective: In the present study, we aimed to assess hostility and to examine its association with formal psychiatric diagnosis, coping, cancer worries, and quality of life in cancer patients.

Methods: The World Health Organization (WHO) Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) to make an ICD-10 (International Classification of Disease) psychiatric diagnosis was applied to 516 cancer outpatients. The patients also completed the Brief Symptom Inventory-53 to assess hostility (BSI-HOS), and the Mini-Mental Adjustment to cancer scale (Mini-MAC).

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Major depression is associated with premature mortality, largely explained by heightened cardiovascular burden. This narrative review summarizes secondary literature (i.e.

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Introduction: Depression and demoralization are highly prevalent among individuals with physical illnesses but their relationship is still unclear.

Objective: To examine the relationship between clinical features of depression and demoralization with the network approach to psychopathology.

Methods: Participants were recruited from the medical wards of a University Hospital in Italy.

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Background: Demoralization, as assessed through the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research-Demoralization (DCPR/D) interview or the Demoralization Scale (DS), has been found to affect about 30% of patients with medical disorders, while few studies have been done in patients with psychiatric disorders.

Methods: A convenience sample of 377 patients with ICD-10 diagnoses of mood, anxiety, stress-related disorders or other non-psychotic disorders was recruited from two Italian university psychiatry centers. The DCPR/D interview and the Italian version of the DS (DS-IT) were used to assess demoralization and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) to assess depression.

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Objective: Demoralization has been mostly investigated in oncology but is also relevant for patients with other physical illnesses. Our aims were to investigate the psychometric properties of the 24-item Italian version of the Demoralization Scale (DS-24) among medically ill inpatients, and to develop shorter versions for screening.

Methods: Four-hundred and seventy-three participants were recruited from medical wards of the University Hospital of Ferrara.

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