Emotional processes and stress in children affected by hereditary angioedema with C1-inhibitor deficiency : a multicenter, prospective study

Background: Hereditary angioedema with C1-inhibitor deficiency (C1-INH-HAE) is characterized by recurrent edema of unpredictable frequency and severity. Stress, anxiety, and low mood are among the triggering factors most frequently reported. Impaired regulation and processing of emotions, also known as alexithymia, may influence outcomes. The aim of this study was to confirm the presence of alexithymia and stress in children with C1-INH-HAE, to determine whether they are also present in children affected by other chronic diseases, and to investigate their relationship with C1-INH-HAE severity. Data from children with C1-INH-HAE (n = 28) from four reference centers in Italy were compared with data from children with type 1 diabetes (T1D; n = 23) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA; n = 25). Alexithymia was assessed using the Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children scale; perceived stress was assessed using the Coddington Life Event Scale for Children (CLES-C). Results: Mean age (standard deviation [SD]) in the C1-INH-HAE, T1D, and RA groups was 11.8 (3.3), 11.7 (2.9), and 11.1 (2.6) years, respectively. Mean C1-INH-HAE severity score was 5.9 (2.1), indicating moderate disease. Alexithymia scores were similar among disease groups and suggestive of difficulties in identifying and describing emotions; CLES-C scores tended to be worse in C1-INH-HAE children. C1-INH-HAE severity was found to correlate significantly and positively with alexithymia (p = 0.046), but not with perceived stress. Alexithymia correlated positively with perceived stress. Conclusions: Alexithymia is common in children with chronic diseases. In C1-INH-HAE, it may result in increased perceived stress and act as a trigger of edema attacks. Comprehensive management of C1-INH-HAE children should consider psychological factors

Diritto al denaro o denaro per i diritti? Dal contrasto alla povertà a un welfare delle opportunità

Il volume analizza e riflette su i risultati di una ricerca sull'applicazione in Campania del Reddito di cittadinanza, misura universalistica di contrasto alla povertà. La riflessione sui risultati di tale indagine rivela come dietro ciò che si continua a esprimere secondo una medesima metrica monetaria - la povertà e il contrasto alla povertà - si nascondano significati, usi, assetti normativi e criteri regolativi diversificati territorialmente, rivelatori di cosa sia empiricamente la povertà in ciascun contesto e di come incida in esso un medesimo intervento di contrasto, in questo caso il Reddito di cittadinanza. Ne risulta uno scenario complesso, che si sottrae a giudizi sommari sintetizzabili in termini di successo o fallimento della misura, ed esplicita piuttosto il nesso tra cornice istituzionale ed esiti degli interventi. La ricerca, condotta su un campione ragionato di Ambiti territoriali, utilizza sia i dati amministrativi che interviste narrative ai beneficiari, analizzate attraverso l'Analisi delle strutture di eventi, secondo un disegno di ricerca particolarmente originale

Growth hormone/IGF-1 axis longitudinal evaluation in clinically isolated syndrome patients on interferon β-1b therapy: stimulation tests and correlations with clinical and radiological conversion to multiple sclerosis

Growth hormone (GH)/insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) axis abnormalities in multiple sclerosis (MS) suggest their role in its pathogenesis. Interferon β (IFN-β) efficacy could be mediated also by an increase of IGF-1 levels. A 2-year longitudinal study was performed to estimate the prevalence of GH and/or IGF-1 deficiency in clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) patients and their correlation with conversion to MS in IFN treated patients

HEALTHCARE AND CULTURE: SUBJECTIVITY IN THE HEALTHCARE CONTEXTS.

The book deals with current issues, pertinent every healthcare relationship. Changes in medicine as well as some constant aspects over time arise within a cultural ground and generate new questions and issues that are not only purely medical, but also bioethical, social, political, economic and psychological of course. On the one hand, changes in medicine generate new questions for society, on the other hand, the society poses new questions to the medicine, new challenges, and in some cases they can conflict with consolidated models and practices. Never the progress of Western medicine and its therapeutic practices have been as significant as in the last decades but the increase of specific competence and effectiveness of medical treatments are not linearly translated into an increase of consensus, dialogue and alliance between medicine and society. How does psychology take on a position of interlocutor towards medicine and its transformations? How does Cultural Psychology, Health Psychology, Clinical Psychology confront themselves with the processes of meaning making generated by medicine? The interest of the book is aimed to grasp the construction of processes of cultural, relational and subjective meaning in the dialogical encounter between medicine and society, between doctor and patient. The book intends to focus in particular on two specific plans: on the one hand, to present a reflection and analysis on contemporary medicine and its on‐going transformations of the healthcare relationship; on the other hand, to present and discuss experiences of intervention and possible models of intervention addressed to healthcare and doctor‐patient relationships during its crucial steps (consultation, formulation and communication of diagnosis, therapy, conclusion). The book’s purposes are aimed to discuss crucial and current issues on the borders between medicine and psychology: consensus and sharing, decision‐making and autonomy, subjectivity and narration, emotions and affectivity, medical semeiotics and cultural semiotics, training of physicians, and epistemological, theoretical and methodological issues. CONTENTS Series Editor’s Preface: Caring for Health Care: Cultural Processes in Medicine, Jaan Valsiner. Introduction: The Meaning Making Processes of Healthcare Relationship in the Current Scenario, Maria Francesca Freda and Raffaele De Luca Picione. PART I: HEALTHCARE RELATIONSHIP AS ARENA OF MEANING. FROM CULTURAL ISSUE TO SUBJECTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF ILLNESS. Medicine as a Complex Set of Cultural Systems of Meanings, Raffaele De Luca Picione. The Border Into Wonderland: When Words Between Doctor and Patient Is Not Enough, Jensine Nedergaard. Autonomy: A Concept at the Crossroads of Medicine and Psychology, Giovanni Guerra. The Role of the Meaning‐Making Process in the Management of Hereditary Angioedema, Livia Savarese, Maria Bova, Raffaella Falco, Maria Domenica Guarino, Gerarda Siani, Paolo Valerio, and Maria Francesca Freda. PART II: HEALTHCARE RELATIONSHIP AS ARENA OF TRANSFORMATION: FROM COMMUNICATION TO DIALOGUE. Psychological Scaffolding in the Healthcare Relationship: A Methodological Proposal, Maria Francesca Freda, Raffaele De Luca Picione, and Francesca Dicè. Breaking Bad News: Theory and Practice for Healthcare Professionals’ Training, Giulia Lamiani, Daniela Leone, Elaine C. Meyer, and Elena Vegni. Psychologists and Family Physicians in an Experience of Collaborative Care in Italy: An Effort Towards Integration and Against Stigma, Luigi Solano, Barbara Cordella, Michela Di Trani, Rosa Ferri, and Alessia Renzi. Clinical Psychology in Hospital Setting, Renzo Carli, Rosa Maria Paniccia, Silvia Policelli, and Andrea Caputo. PART III: MENTAL HEALTHCARE AS PARADIGMATIC ARENA TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN RELATION. From Psychopathology to Service. A New View of the Clinical Psychology Intervention, Sergio Salvatore, Claudia Venuleo, Valeria Pace, Marianna Puglisi, Mari Tandoi, Annalisa Venezia, Rossano Grassi, and Gianna Mangeli. Recovery, Paternalism and Narrative Understanding in Mental Healthcare, Tim Thornton. “Why Do You Then Not Shit?” Diagnosis and the Semiotic Sphere, Yair Neuman. PART IV: PREGNANCY AND MOTHERHOOD: A CHALLENGING ARENA FOR DIALOGUE BETWEEN MEDICINE AND PSYCHOLOGY. Birth Experience as Socially and Culturally Regulated Event, Kristiina Uriko. The Generative Function of a Healthcare System: Linking Meanings Between Chronic Illness and Motherhood, Giorgia Margherita, Maria Carlino, and Francesca Tessitore.Doctor‐Patient Relationship in Face of Grief/Mourning: The Case of Gestational Losses, Vivian Volkmer Pontes and Ana Cecília Bastos.Conclusion: Healthcare Relationship: An Open Space Dialogue in Search of Its Own Forms, Maria Francesca Freda and Raffaele De Luca Picione. About the Authors

The experience of living with a chronic disease in pediatrics from the mothers’ narratives: The Clinical Interview on Parental Sense of Grip on the Disease

The Clinical Interview on the Sense of Grip on Chronic Disease has been administered to 68 mothers of children affected by Hereditary Angioedema (C1-Inh HAE), Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA). The objectives are to detect general features of the experience of parenting children with chronic illness as well as the specificities of this experience related to the different conditions. Four Profiles of Sense of Grip were identified: Adempitive, Controlling, Reactive, Dynamic. The Sense of Grip Interview is an effective clinical tool for understanding the characteristics of the disease in daily life, which can help clinicians to encourage family adjustment to disease

Marsico, G., (2018). The challenges of the Schooling from Cultural Psychology of Education. Integrative Psychological and Behavioural Sciences.52(3),474-489, DOI: 10.1007/s12124-018-9454-6

Education is in the core of societal change in all its different forms—from kindergartens to vocational schools and lifelong learning. Education—understood as goal-oriented personal movement—re-structures personal lives both inside school and outside the school. This special issue stems from the Cultural Psychology of Education (Marsico Culture & Psychology, 21(4), 445–454, 2015a, b, Journal for the Study of Education and Development, 40(4), 754–781, 2017)—a new approach to the field of education that examines how educational experience is culturally organized. This special issue is focused on the work of schooling as a crucial scientific arena to investigate. It is the follow up of an international workshop host by the Centre for Cultural Psychology (at Aalborg University, Demark) that was very thought provoking and from where several outcomes came out. Some of them are the papers here presented that tried to illuminate the different dimensions of the educational context in the East and West society with specific attention to the Chinese and Scandinavian educational practices. The dialogue between Chinese, European and North American scholars offered a complex view of the current educational challenges in the age of globalization. In this paper I try to focus on some of the most debated and challenging aspects in educational psychology worldwide: diversity, values and practical usability of psychology at school. I re-read these “hot topics” with the help of the themes developed by the authors of this special issue and in light of Cultural Psychology of Education. Then, I conclude by proposing a new agenda for the education of the future