Health literacy in Mediterranean general population

INTRODUCTION Health literacy refers to "the ability to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and access health services in order to make informed choices." In essence, being able to acquire, understand, and use information for one's own health. METHODS Observational study through the administration of a face-to-face questionnaire conducted between July and September 2020 on 260 individuals residing between Calabria and Sicily, aged between 18 and 89 years. Questions related to education, lifestyle (alcohol, smoking, and physical activity). Multiple-choice questions to assess health literacy and conceptual skills, ability to find information on health topics and services, use of preventive medicine especially vaccinations, and ability to make decisions about one's own health. RESULTS Of 260, 43% were male and 57% female. The most represented age group is between 50 and 59 years. Forty-eight percent of respondents had a high school diploma. 39% smoke and 32% habitually consume alcoholic beverages; only 40% engage in physical activity. Ten percent had a low level of health literacy, average 55%, adequate 35%. CONCLUSIONS Given the importance of adequate HL on health choices and on individual and public wellbeing, it is essential to expand the knowledge of the individual, through public and private information campaigns and with an increasing involvement of family physicians, who are fundamental in training and informing their patients

Study of the spectral response of CZT multiple-electrode detectors

Cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) is a promising material for room temperature X-ray and gamma-ray detectors. The high atomic number and the wide band-gap give high quantum efficiency and good room temperature performances. Due to hole trapping, particular electrode structures have been developed to provide single-charge carrier collection (electrons), exploiting the excellent charge transport properties of the electrons. In this work, the spectroscopic performances of two CZT detectors (CZT1: 5 mm times 5 mm times 0.90 mm; CZT2: 4.8 mm times 5 mm times 0.55 mm) with five electrodes (cathode, anode and three steering electrodes) were studied. The anode-collecting electrode, surrounded by three steering electrodes (biased for optimum charge collection), is mostly sensitive to electron carriers, overcoming the effects of hole trapping in the measured spectra (hole tailing). We investigated on the spectroscopic response (241Am source; 59.5 keV) of the detectors at different bias voltages of the electrodes. The detectors exhibit excellent energy resolution (CZT1: 2.0% FWHM at 59.5 keV; CZT2: 1.7% FWHM at 59.5 keV; working temperature -10degC) and low tailing (CZT1: FW.1M to FWHM ratio of 1.93 at 59.5 keV; CZT2: 2.35 at 59.5 keV). This study stresses on the excellent spectroscopic properties of the CZT detectors equipped with a custom anode layout, making them very attractive candidates as x-ray spectrometers mainly for medical applications

An evaluation of gambling addiction and video lottery in the South of Italy

Nowadays, pathological gambling is an emerging health problem. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM 5) renames it as 'Gambling Disorder' (GD), thus recognising its highly dependent status. A study was conducted from April 2016 to August 2017 to evaluate the prevalence of this phenomenon by administering an ad hoc questionnaire to adult individuals (both sexes) over the age of 18.  We analysed a sample of 562 individuals with DSM 5 criteria. We obtained a score > 4 indicating a possible mild gambling disorder in 1.6% of the sample and a score > 6 corresponding to a moderate GD in 2.3% of the sample. We observed that the main motivations for gambling were “having fun” and “the prospect of winning” and 10.9% of respondents had played more than they intended. Furthermore, "problematic" players showed to be more prone to alcohol abuse than "social" players (p < 0.001). Only 7.5% of respondents had already gambling problems in their family (involving in particular their mothers). The phenomenon is, therefore, quite common in our area and, indeed, 64.1% of the sample believes that gambling is a problem in their own territory, however only 20.6% would know where to find help. In conclusion, given the high socio-economic impact of this phenomenon, we believe that it is imperative to establish structured preventions programs in order to to contain the spread of this phenomenon.  Key words

Vaccination coverage in healthcare workers: a multicenter cross-sectional study in Italy

IntroductionIn recent years, a phenomenon known as "vaccine hesitancy" has spread throughout the world, even among health workers, determining a reduction in vaccination coverage (VC). A study aimed at evaluating VC among healthcare workers (HCWs) in 10 Italian cities (L'Aquila, Genoa, Milan, Palermo, Sassari, Catanzaro, Ferrara, Catania, Naples, Messina) was performed.Materials and methodsAnnex 3 of the Presidential Decree n. 445 of 28 December 2000 was used to collect information on the vaccination status of HCWs. The mean and standard deviation (SD) were calculated with regard to the quantitative variable (age), while absolute and relative frequencies were obtained for categorical data (sex, professional profile, working sector, vaccination status). The connection between VC and the categorical variables was evaluated by chi-square method (statistical significance at p<0.05). The statistical analyses were performed by SPSS and Stata software.ResultsA total of 3,454 HCWs participated in the project: 1,236 males and 2,218 females. The sample comprised: physicians (26.9%), trainee physicians (16.1%), nurses (17.2%) and other professional categories (9.8%). Low VC was generally recorded. Higher VC was found with regard to polio, hepatitis B, tetanus and diphtheria, while coverage was very low for measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, chickenpox and influenza (20-30%). ConclusionsThis study revealed low VC rates among HCWs for all the vaccinations. Measures to increase VC are therefore necessary in order to prevent HCWs from becoming a source of transmission of infections with high morbidity and/or mortality both within hospitals and outside

Recent results on heavy-ion induced reactions of interest for neutrinoless double beta decay at INFN-LNS

Abstract. The possibility to use a special class of heavy-ion induced direct reactions, such as double charge exchange reactions, is discussed in view of their application to extract information that may be helpful to determinate the nuclear matrix elements entering in the expression of neutrinoless double beta decay halflife. The methodology of the experimental campaign presently running at INFN - Laboratori Nazionali del Sud is reported and the experimental challenges characterizing such activity are describe

Digital filtering and analysis for a semiconductor X-ray detector data acquisition

Pile-up distortion is a major drawback in X-ray spectroscopy at high count rate. Pulse width narrowing with shaping techniques can lead to the reduction of the pile-up distortion, but a low shaping time reduces the noise filtration and leads to a poor energy resolution. Thus, only a best compromise solution between the pile-up and the noise requirements is achievable. The hardware manipulation needed to adjust the parameters of the traditional electronic shaping amplifiers makes it uneasy to tests various settings in different conditions. Digital techniques can help to overcome such difficulties. A digital signal processing and analysis system for X-ray spectroscopy is described in this paper. The system processes the output signal of a Charge Sensitive Preamplifier (CSPA) connected to an X-ray semiconductor detector. The output CSPA signal is registered with a high speed ADC (sampling rate up to 100 MS/s, 14 bit resolution) and a fully digital shaping is performed off-line by a dedicated software instead of analog electronics. The software carries out the rest of data analysis (peak detection, pile-up recognition, rejection or correction) and finally calculates the photon count, constructs the spectrum and extracts other useful information. We processed the output signals of an Ampteks XR-100 T CdTe detector used with mammographic X-ray beams. We developed the system with the LabVIEWs platform. The software is characterized by a user friendly GUI which make it easier to change settings than traditional electronics

X-ray spectroscopy and dosimetry with a portable CdTe device.

X-ray spectra and dosimetry information are very important for quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) in medical diagnostic X-ray systems. An accurate knowledge of the diagnostic X-ray spectra would improve the patient dose optimization, without compromising image information. In this work, we performed direct diagnostic X-ray spectra measurements with a portable device, based on a CdTe solid-state detector. The portable device is able to directly measure X-ray spectra at high photon fluence rates, as typical of clinical radiography. We investigated on the spectral performances of the system in the mammographic energy range (up to ∼40 keV). Good system response to monoenergetic photons was measured (energy resolution of 5% FWHM at 22.1 keV). We measured the molybdenum X-ray spectra produced by a mammographic X-ray unit (GE Senographe DMR) at 28 kV and 30 kV under clinical conditions. The results showed the good reproducibility of the system and low pile-up distortions. Preliminary dosimetric measurements have been regarded as exposure and half value layer (HVL) values obtained from direct measurements and from measured X-ray spectral data, and a good agreement between exposure attenuation curves and the HVL values was obtained. The results indicated that the portable device is suitable for mammographic X-ray spectroscopy under clinical condition

A Fourier-Based Algorithm for Micro-Calcification Enhancement in Mammographic Images

Breast cancer is the most widespread cancer in women in the world; it manifests mostly in two forms: microcalcifications and massive lesions. These two forms differ in density, size, shape and number. Consequently, there are two different kinds of mammographic CAD algorithms: those for microcalcifications detection, and those for massive lesions detection. The microcalcifications detection is a hard task, since they are quite small and often poorly contrasted against the background, especially in images affected by digitization noise. In a CAD system the ROI Hunter plays an important role, because missed microcalcifications at this level are definitely lost. For this reason, highlighting methods for suspected microcalcifications may be useful in a CAD system. In this work, we describe a Fourier Transform based microcalcifications enhancement method, which takes place after the image preprocessing and before the ROI Hunter step, aimed at highlighting suspected area

Diagnosing Gestational Diabetes with a Probably Too Simplified Diagnostic Procedure Compared to International Criteria: The Indian Case Study

Diagnostic procedures for the diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are not uniformly defined worldwide. We retrospectively applied two diagnostic procedures (i.e., the IADPSG and the Indian) to the same pregnant women in order to compare the clinical characteristics and the prevalence of risk factors for GDM. Overall, 1015 pregnant women were evaluated. GDM was diagnosed in 113 cases (11.1%) by the IADPSG criteria and in 105 cases (10.3%) by the Indian criteria. The women diagnosed with GDM according to the IADPSG criteria had higher pre-gestational BMIs, higher previous macrosomia rates, higher first trimester fasting blood glucose levels, higher fasting and 1 h glucose levels after glucose load at OGTT, and lower 2 h glucose levels at OGTT compared with the women with GDM diagnosed according to the Indian criteria. Only 49.6% of the women who were diagnosed by the IADPSG criteria were also diagnosed with GDM by the Indian diagnostic criteria. For 47.8% of the women who were diagnosed by the IADPSG criteria, a diagnosis of GDM was missed by applying the Indian diagnostic criteria. Interestingly, 49 women were diagnosed with GDM by the Indian criteria but were normal according to the IADPSG criteria. Different diagnostic criteria could lead to different GDM detection rates with different practical approaches

Immunological Dysregulation in Multiple Myeloma Microenvironment

Multiple Myeloma (MM) is a systemic hematologic disease due to uncontrolled proliferation of monoclonal plasma cells (PC) in bone marrow (BM). Emerging in other solid and liquid cancers, the host immune system and the microenvironment have a pivotal role for PC growth, proliferation, survival, migration, and resistance to drugs and are responsible for some clinical manifestations of MM. In MM, microenvironment is represented by the cellular component of a normal bone marrow together with extracellular matrix proteins, adhesion molecules, cytokines, and growth factors produced by both stromal cells and PC themselves. All these components are able to protect PC from cytotoxic effect of chemo-and radiotherapy. This review is focused on the role of immunome to sustain MM progression, the emerging role of myeloid derived suppressor cells, and their potential clinical implications as novel therapeutic target