Cross-validation of the reduced form of the food craving questionnaire -trait using confirmatory factor analysis

Objective: The Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait (FCQ-T) is commonly used to assess habitual food cravings among individuals. Previous studies have shown that a brief version of this instrument (FCQ-T-r) has good reliability and validity. This article is the first to use Confirmatory factor analysis to examine the psychometric properties of the FCQ-T-r in a cross-validation study. Method: Habitual food cravings, as well as emotion regulation strategies, affective states, and disordered eating behaviors, were investigated in two independent samples of non-clinical adult volunteers (Sample 1: N = 368; Sample 2: N = 246). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to simultaneously test model fit statistics and dimensionality of the instrument. FCQ-T-r reliability was assessed by computing the composite reliability coefficient. Results: Analysis supported the unidimensional structure of the scale and fit indices were acceptable for both samples. The FCQ-T-r showed excellent reliability and moderate to high correlations with negative affect and disordered eating. Conclusion: Our results indicate that the FCQ-T-r scores can be reliably used to assess habitual cravings in an Italian non-clinical sample of adults. The robustness of these results is tested by a cross-validation of the model using two independent samples. Further research is required to expand on these findings, particularly in children and adolescents

Insomnia and emotion regulation. Recent findings and suggestions for treatment

Recent findings suggest that insomnia and emotion regulation are closely connected. Insomnia is widely associated with medical and psychiatric conditions as well as with impaired quality of life and emotional functioning. Additionally empirical evidence suggests that emotional dysregulation plays a crucial role in the onset and maintenance of psychopathological disorders. Although these seem to interact, very few studies investigated the relationship between disturbed sleep and problems in emotion regulation. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) has been demonstrated to be effective in comorbid insomnia. However, emotion regulation skills are not included in this intervention. After reviewing the recent findings of the literature, we aim to discuss future directions for the inclusion of emotion regulation training in the treatment of insomnia disorde

Persistence of poor sleep predicts the severity of the clinical condition after 6months of standard treatment in patients with eating disorders

Clinical evidence suggests that eating disorder (ED) patients experience poor sleep even if they rarely complain of it. However, direct empirical evidence supporting this relationship is still sparse. In order to provide direct evidence, poor sleep, severity of the ED symptoms and depression were obtained in 562 ED patients at treatment admission (T0). For 271 patients out of them, data were also available after 6 months of standard treatment (T1). Results evidence that at T0 poor sleep predicts severity of ED symptoms through the mediation of depression. Persistence of poor sleep at T1 directly predicts the severity of the ED symptoms both directly and through the mediation of depression. These findings suggest that the treatment of ED may benefit from addressing poor sleep since its presence and persistence increase comorbidity and attrition to the standard treatment

Executive functions in insomnia disorder: a systematic review and exploratory meta-analysis

Background: Executive functions (EFs) are involved in the control of basic psychological processes such as attention and memory and also contribute to emotion regulation. Research on the presence of EFs impairments in insomnia yielded inconsistent results. Therefore, we performed a systematic review of the literature on three EFs: inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility in adults with insomnia in order to investigate the presence and magnitude of insomnia-related EFs impairments. Methods: PubMed, Scopus, Medline, and PsycINFO were searched. Risk of bias assessment of included studies was performed by two independent researchers. Findings were summarised using both a narrative approach and meta-analysis. Cohen’s d was calculated at 95% confidence interval (CI) as effect size of between groups differences. Results: Twenty-eight studies comparing adult individuals with a diagnosis of insomnia and healthy controls on neuropsychological measures of EFs were included. Narrative synthesis revealed substantial variability across study findings. Factors that were primarily hypothesised to account for this variability are: objective sleep impairments and test sensitivity. Exploratory meta-analysis showed impaired performance of small to moderate magnitude in individuals with insomnia as compared to controls in reaction times, but not accuracy rates, of inhibitory control (d = −0.32, 95% CI: −0.52 to −0.13) and cognitive flexibility tasks (d = −0.30, 95% CI: −0.59 to −0.01). Performance in working memory tasks was also significantly impacted (d = −0.19, 95% CI: −0.38 to −0.00). Effects sizes were larger when insomnia was associated with objective sleep impairments, rather than normal sleep. Conclusions: We gathered evidence supporting small to moderate deficits in EFs in individuals with insomnia. Due to the small sample size results should be considered preliminary and interpreted carefully

Sleep and emotions: A focus on insomnia

Insomnia disorder is defined as difficulties in initiating/maintaining sleep and/or non-restorative sleep accompanied by decreased daytime functioning, persisting for at least four weeks. For many patients suffering from depression and anxiety, insomnia is a pervasive problem. Many of the aetiological theories of insomnia postulate that heightened emotional reactivity contributes to the maintenance of symptoms. This review focuses on the role of emotional reactivity in insomnia, and how the relationship between insomnia and depression and anxiety may be mediated by emotional reactivity. Furthermore, studies investigating the valence of emotions in insomnia are reviewed. Overall, there is empirical evidence that dysfunctional emotional reactivity might mediate the interaction between cognitive and autonomic hyperarousal, thus contributing to the maintenance of insomnia. Moreover, dysfunctions in sleep-wake regulating neural circuitries seem to be able to reinforce emotional disturbances. It seems plausible that dysfunctional emotional reactivity modulates the relationship between insomnia and depression and anxiety. Considering the interaction between sleep and emotional valence, poor sleep quality seems to correlate with high negative and low positive emotions, both in clinical and subclinical samples. Good sleep seems to be associated with high positive emotions, but not necessarily with low negative emotions. This review underlines the need for future research on emotions in insomnia. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Androgenetic alopecia: a review

Purpose Androgenetic alopecia, commonly known as male pattern baldness, is the most common type of progressive hair loss disorder in men. The aim of this paper is to review recent advances in understanding the pathophysiology and molecular mechanism of androgenetic alopecia. Methods Using the PubMed database, we conducted a systematic review of the literature, selecting studies pub- lished from 1916 to 2016. Results The occurrence and development of androgenetic alopecia depends on the interaction of endocrine factors and genetic predisposition. Androgenetic alopecia is character- ized by progressive hair follicular miniaturization, caused by the actions of androgens on the epithelial cells of genetically susceptible hair follicles in androgen-dependent areas. Although the exact pathogenesis of androgenetic alopecia remains to be clari fi ed, research has shown that it is a polygenetic condition. Numerous studies have unequi- vocally identi fi ed two major genetic risk loci for androge- netic alopecia, on the X-chromosome AR ⁄ EDA2R locus and the chromosome 20p11 locus. Conclusions Candidate gene and genome-wide association studies have reported that single-nucleotide polymorphisms at different genomic loci are associated with androgenetic alopecia development. A number of genes determine the predisposition for androgenetic alopecia in a polygenic fashion. However, further studies are needed before the specific genetic factors of this polygenic condition can be fully explaine

The effects of one night of partial sleep deprivation on executive functions in individuals reporting chronic insomnia and good sleepers

Background and objectives The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of a partial sleep deprivation night on executive functions in participants reporting chronic insomnia and good sleepers using a Task Switching paradigm. Methods Sixteen participants reporting symptoms of chronic insomnia and sixteen good sleepers were tested after a night of habitual sleep and after a night of partial sleep deprivation (5\u202fh of sleep allowed). The Switch Cost (SC) and the Backward Inhibition (BI) were computed as measures of switching attention and response inhibition, respectively. Results We observed a marginally significant interaction Night\u202f 7\u202fGroup on SC (F(1,29)\u202f=\u202f4.06, p\u202f=\u202f0.053, \u3b72\u202f=\u202f0.123. Fisher's least significant difference (LSD) post-hoc revealed a smaller SC after the sleep deprived night relative to the habitual night for the good sleepers (p\u202f=\u202f0.027;M\u202f=\u202f192.23\u202f\ub1\u202f201.81 vs M\u202f=\u202f98.99\u202f\ub1\u202f141.16). Differently, participants with insomnia did not show any change after the two nights. Limitations Several limitations must be acknowledged including the use of a convenient sample of university students and the use of a single task of cognitive performance. Conclusions We found that SC was smaller in the good sleepers after a night of partial sleep deprivation compared to a habitual night, indicating a better switching performance. The insomnia group showed no differences in performance after the two experimental nights. Several factors may account for these results, including increased levels of arousal and cognitive effort during task execution

The personal and interpersonal components of perfectionism: the Italian validation of “Multidimensional Inventory of Perfectionism in Sport”

The present research focused on the general theme of perfectionism in the sport domain, and it provided the first empirical validation of the original 72-item “Multidimensional Inventory of Perfectionism in Sport” (MIPS) among Italian athletes. The study, specifically, also focused on the relations linking personal and interpersonal components of perfectionism to athletes’ competitive anxiety. The research overall relied on data from 644 Italian sport science students and professional athletes and included both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. Data analyses primarily focused on structural equation modeling, and the findings overall supported the psychometric and construct validity of the Italian version of the MIPS, also highlighting the key role of the personal components of perfectionism