Meaning in life: structure, sources and relations with mental and physical health

Meaning in life is a core component of human experience, and it plays a relevant role in the promotion of mental, social and physical well-being, as well as in the successful adaptation to adverse conditions, including chronic and progressive diseases. This paper provides an overview of the most recent conceptualizations of meaning in the psychological domain, specifically addressing its tripartite structure, encompassing the facets of coherence, significance and purpose. Empirical evidence will be summarized concerning the role of social relationships and self-transcendence as primary sources of meaning in life. Research findings highlighting the role of meaning as a core component of mental health,and as a resource in adaptively managing illness consequences on daily functioning and life goals will be also reported. Current research gaps and future directions for theoretical and empirical advancements will be outlined

Individual development in a bio-cultural perspective

Biological and cultural inheritance deeply influence daily human behavior. However, individuals actively interact with bio-cultural information. Throughout their lives, they preferentially cultivate a limited subset of activities, values, and personal interests. This process, defined as psychological selection, is strictly related to the quality of subjective experience. Specifically, cross-cultural studies have highlighted the central role played by optimal experience or flow, the most positive and complex daily experience reported by the participants. It is characterized by high involvement, deep concentration, intrinsic motivation, and the perception of high challenges matched by adequate personal skills. The associated activities represent the basic units of psychological selection. Flow can therefore influence the selective transmission of bio-cultural information and the process of bio-cultural evolution

Italian Validation of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire: Factor Structure, Reliability, Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Several studies highlighted the role of meaning in life as a major component of well-being. Researchers developed different instruments to assess the features of this construct. In the present study the psychometric properties of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ; Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006) were investigated in the Italian context. The MLQ is a 10-item scale measuring perceived presence of and search for meaning in life, conceptualized as two separate factors. The former refers to perceived meaning and purpose in life, the latter to the active commitment to find meaning in life. Participants were 464 adults aged 20-60 (M=39.34; SD=10.86; 54.7% women). Factor structure was inspected through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using a split-sample approach. Internal consistency was assessed through Cronbach\u2019s alphas, inter-item and item-scale correlations. Convergent and discriminant validity with measures of well-being, personality, mental and physical health were also evaluated. Factor analyses supported the adequacy of the MLQ two-factor structure in the Italian context; internal consistency measures corroborated the instrument\u2019s reliability; and correlation matrix coefficients sustained convergent and discriminant validity. Results showed that the MLQ is a valid and reliable measure to assess meaning in life and its relationship with well-being within the Italian context

Sharing optimal experiences and promoting good community life in a multicultural society

This study focused on immigrants' quality of daily experience, sources of well-being and future expectations. Theoretical frameworks were research on cross-cultural adaptation and studies on optimal experience. Participants were 159 first-generation immigrants, who moved to Italy from Africa, India, South America, and Eastern Europe. Data were collected through Flow Questionnaire and Life Theme Questionnaire, providing information on optimal experience and associated activities, present challenges and future goals, and on the quality of experience perceived in daily life domains. Results showed that the occurrence of optimal experiences and the features of the associated activities, as well as perceived challenges and goals were primarily connected with the life opportunities offered by the hosting country, along with participants' cultural distance and length of stay. This suggests that information on optimal experiences, perceived quality of daily life and future goals can be useful in designing programs to support immigrants' psychological well-being and socio-cultural adjustment

Meaning as interconnectedness : theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence

Researchers interested in the study of eudaimonic well-being have devoted increasing efforts in the attempt to define and understand meaning as a core resource fostering human development and successful adaptation to the environmental demands. Conceptual models and empirical findings highlighted the pivotal role of relationships and connectedness in the construction and enhancement of meaning throughout life. In this paper connectedness is discussed from an interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence developed within the natural and social sciences. The cross-disciplinary emphasis on the substantial role of inter-connectedness in shaping living systems and human communities will be highlighted. Taking into account these interdisciplinary convergences and empirical evidence obtained from the psychological investigation of the sources and structure of meaning, three levels of connectedness will be identified \u2013 a proximal, a distal and a symbolic connectedness. A comprehensive framework will be proposed, in which inter-connectedness is considered a crucial aspect of the prominent sources of meaning in daily life, as well as the core essence of meaning itself. This approach offers the possibility to explore meaning from a unifying perspective, overcoming disciplinary boundaries and opening new research avenues

Resilience as a moderator between Objective and Subjective Burden among parents of children with ADHD

The caring related challenges reported by parents of children with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) were widely investigated. Little information is instead available on the resources mobilized by these parents in facing caring burden. In the attempt to fill this gap, the present study aimed at exploring the moderating role of resilience in the relationship between the amount of time parents of children with ADHD devote to caring tasks (objective burden) and their emotional and social burden (subjective burden). A multidimensional model of resilience was adopted, comprising six components: Self-Perception, Planned Future, Structured Style, Social Competence, Family Cohesion, and Social Resources. Participants were 44 parents (81.8% females, aged 31-53) of children with ADHD (86.4% males, aged 6-14). They completed the Caregiver Burden Inventory, the Resilience Scale for Adults, and the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey. Hierarchical regressions were performed to test the moderating role of resilience as a global construct, and of each resilience dimension separately, on the relation between objective and subjective burden; participants\u2019 gender and mental health scores were employed as control variables. Total resilience, Family Cohesion and Self-Perception emerged as protective factors, weakening the relationship between subjective and objective burden. Findings suggest that the potential of individual and family resources in promoting parents\u2019 adjustment to caring burden could be more effectively exploited in clinical interventions addressed to parents of children with ADHD. Overall, the identification of caregivers\u2019 strengths and resources could help practitioners to better support children with ADHD and their families

Hypergastrinemia and enterochromaffin-like cell hyperplasia.

The enterochromaffin-like (ECL) cells, the most frequent endocrine cells of the oxyntic mucosa of the stomach, are under the trophic stimulus of gastrin. These cells undergo a hyperplastic increase in variety of hypergastrinemic diseases. The most widely accepted nomenclature for the description of hyperplastic proliferation has been retrospectively arranged in a sequence presumed to reflect a temporal evolution of the proliferative process. A comparative, prospective study aimed to verify, in human hypergastrinemic diseases such as atrophic body gastritis (ABG), Zollinger-Ellison syndrome (ZES) and antral gastrin cell hyperfunction (AGCH), the effect of exposure of ECL cells to different pattern of gastrin hypersecretion, is lacking. To this purpose, we studied a series of consecutive patients with ABG, ZES and AGCH at the time of first diagnosis. Material and Methods: The patients included in this study (124 ABG, 18 ZES and 10 AGCH) were selected on the basis of two previously performed screening studies aimed to diagnose these diseases. All patients at the time of diagnosis underwent gastroscopy, with multiple biopsies of the gastric body mucosa for the evaluation of qualitative pattern of ECL cells hyperplasia, and basal fasting gastrin determination. A sample of hypergastrinemic patients from each group was further investigated by meal-stimulation of gastrin secretion and quantitative morphometry for CgA positive gastric body endocrine cells. Results: AGCH patients showed only the normal or simple hyperplasia pattern. In the ZES group, simple and linear grades accounted for 38.4 percent and 46.1 percent, respectively. MEN-I patients showed only these two patterns. The majority of ABG patients showed the presence of micronodular pattern (59.7 percent). A correlation analysis between fasting gastrin levels and grade of hyperplasia (r = 0.5580, p < 0.0001), indicates that the greater the gastrin levels, the higher is the degree of severity of ECL hyperplasia pattern. In conclusion, our data support the role of gastrin as the selective contributor to the progression of ECL cell hyperplasia in humans

Diagnosis and treatment of acute pancreatitis: The position statement of the Italian Association for the study of the pancreas

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Till now, no Italian studies providing information on acute pancreatitis have been published. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of acute pancreatitis in Italy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study involved 37 Italian centres distributed homogeneously throughout the entire national territory and prospectively collected epidemiological, anamnestic, laboratory, radiological, therapeutic (pharmacological, endoscopic and surgical) data, relevant to each individual case of acute pancreatitis consecutively observed during the period from September 1996 to June 2000. RESULTS: One thousand two hundred and six case report forms were collected, but 201 patients (16.6%) were subsequently eliminated from the final analysis. We therefore studied 1005 patients, 533 (53%) males and 472 (47%) females, mean age 59.6 +/- 20 years. On the basis of the Atlanta classification of acute pancreatitis, 753 patients of the 1005 cases analysed (75%) were mild and 252 patients (25%) severe. The aetiology was biliary in 60% of the patients, related to alcohol abuse in 8.5%, while in 21% of the cases it could not be identified. Over 80% of the patients (83%) were admitted to hospital within 24 h from the onset of clinical symptoms, while only 6% were admitted after 48 h. In particular, 65% of the patients were admitted to hospital within the first 12 h. Antibiotics were used in 85% of the severe and 75% of mild forms. Endoscopic therapy was carried out in 65% of the severe cases, but only in 40% it was carried out prior to 72 h. Eighty-five patients (8.5% of the total, 34% of the severe forms) underwent surgical intervention: 20% on the first day, 38.5% within the fourth day, and the remaining (41.5% of the cases) later on for infected necrosis. The mean duration of hospitalisation for patients with mild pancreatitis was 13 +/- 8 days, while for the severe disease it was of 30 +/- 14 days. The overall mortality rate was 5%, 17% in severe and 1.5% in mild pancreatitis. CONCLUSIONS: Acute pancreatitis in Italy is more commonly a mild disease with a biliary aetiology. The treatment of the disease is not optimal and, on the basis of these data, needs to be standardised. Despite this, the overall mortality rate is low (5%BACKGROUND AND AIM: Till now, no Italian studies providing information on acute pancreatitis have been published. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of acute pancreatitis in Italy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study involved 37 Italian centres distributed homogeneously throughout the entire national territory and prospectively collected epidemiological, anamnestic, laboratory, radiological, therapeutic (pharmacological, endoscopic and surgical) data, relevant to each individual case of acute pancreatitis consecutively observed during the period from September 1996 to June 2000. RESULTS: One thousand two hundred and six case report forms were collected, but 201 patients (16.6%) were subsequently eliminated from the final analysis. We therefore studied 1005 patients, 533 (53%) males and 472 (47%) females, mean age 59.6 +/- 20 years. On the basis of the Atlanta classification of acute pancreatitis, 753 patients of the 10