There is a limit to your openness: Mental illness stigma mediates effects of individual traits on preference for psychiatry specialty

Objective: The widening gap between the need for mental health professionals and the low percentages of medical students pursuing a psychiatric career urges an examination of how individual traits, stigma attitudes, and related intended behaviors interact to better explain the variance in preferences for psychiatry as a specialty choice. Methods: Participants were second-year, preclinical medical students at Bologna University, Italy. The study consisted in completion of an online questionnaire evaluating preferences for the psychiatry specialty (one single item and a scenario-based response), personality traits (the Big Five Questionnaire), attitudes (Mental Illness for Clinicians\u2019 Attitude scale), behaviors (Reported and Intended Behavior Scale), and fears toward mental illness (questionnaire created ad hoc). Sociodemographic data were also collected. Results: A total of 284 medical students [58.8% female, mean (SD) age 20.47 \ub1 1.90] completed the questionnaire. Preference for the psychiatry specialty was significantly and positively associated with openness to experience and negatively related with Mental Illness for Clinicians\u2019 Attitude scale and Reported and Intended Behavior Scale. The full-mediation model provided good indices explaining 18% of the variance. Mental illness stigma was strongly and negatively associated with both openness to experience and preference for psychiatry, and the mediation results evidenced a positive and significant effect. Conclusions: Mental illness stigma influences medical students\u2019 choice of psychiatry as a specialty, accounting for the effects of the openness to experience trait. Stigma awareness and reduction programs should be introduced as early as possible in medical education

Access and allocation in earth system governance: Water and climate change compared

A significant percentage of the global population does not yet have access to safe drinking water, sufficient food or energy to live in dignity. There is a continuous struggle to allocate the earth's resources among users and uses. This article argues that distributional problems have two faces: access to basic resources or ecospace; and, the allocation of environmental resources, risks, burdens, and responsibilities for causing problems. Furthermore, addressing problems of access and allocation often requires access to social processes (science, movements and law). Analysts, however, have tended to take a narrow, disciplinary approach although an integrated conceptual approach may yield better answers. This article proposes a multi-disciplinary perspective to the problem of access and allocation and illustrates its application to water management and climate change. © The Author(s) 2010

Status socio-economico e culturale e mathematical literacy: analisi multilevel sulle prestazioni dei quindicenni italiani alle prove PISA

Obiettivo principale del presente contributo \ue8 valutare la relazione tra lo status socio\u2013economico e culturale degli studenti e il loro livello di competenza in matematica misurato all\u2019interno del progetto internazionale OCSE PISA, considerando anche la rilevanza delle diverse caratteristiche delle scuole per la predizione della performance degli studenti. A tal fine, sono stati analizzati i dati relativi a 10835 studenti raggruppati in 364 scuole, partecipanti al progetto PISA 2003, che rappresentano un campione rappresentativo dei quindicenni italiani scolarizzati. \uc9 stata condotta un\u2019analisi di regressione multilevel per distinguere quanta della variabilit\ue0 delle performance fosse dovuta alle differenze nella condizione socio-economica e culturale dello studente e/o a caratteristiche della scuola e del contesto territoriale in cui \ue8 inserita. I risultati delle analisi evidenziano che le differenze socio\u2013economiche e culturali a livello del singolo studente contribuiscono alla predizione della performance in matematica mentre l\u2019indice di status socio\u2013economico e culturale, calcolato per ciascuna scuola, permette una migliore comprensione delle ampie differenze tra scuole riscontrate in Italia. Si osservano inoltre, nel contesto italiano, rilevanti differenze nella performance tra diverse tipologie di scuola e in funzione area geografica

The influence of reading literacy on mathematics and science achievement

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of students' reading literacy, measured by the PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) test, on their performance in the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) mathematics and science tests. The data on 4,125 Italian students from 199 schools were analyzed: the sample was representative of students in Grade 4, who participated both in TIMSS and PIRLS 2011. Italian descriptive results were compared with those of other countries that participated in both projects. The results showed a high correlation among all three subjects. Repeated measure variance analyses were conducted to determine the effect of reading literacy on mathematics and science performance on the Italian sample. As far as Italian students were concerned, results confirmed the influence of reading literacy on mathematics achievement, whereas the influence of reading literacy on science achievement was not clear

Sleep related problems, circadian preference and scholastic achievement: a study on a representative sample of Italian eight grade students

Objectives: In the present study sleep habits, sleep related problems and circadian preference (morningness/eveningness dimension) were investigated in a representative sample of Italian eighth grade students. We further evaluate the influence of these sleep related variables on scholastic achievement. Methods: We analyzed data of 3391 students that participated to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. All participants completed a modified version of School Sleep Habits Survey to measure schooldays and weekends sleep habits, daytime sleepiness, sleep problems, and circadian preference. Results: Results indicated a very high frequency of sleep complaints. Eight grade students reported frequent difficulties in awakenings, as well as frequent episodes of daytime sleepiness, particularly during studying. The Circadian Preference was correlated with self-reported sleep problems and daytime sleepiness, indicating that an evening orientation is associated to poor sleep quality and higher daytime sleepiness in this age group. With respect to scholastic achievement, the grades in Maths and Italian subjects were significantly associated with sleep problems, daytime sleepiness and, to a lesser extent, with circadian preference. Conclusions: This results not only corroborates the role of sleep on cognitive performance, but they underline a significant presence of sleep problems even at this age