Pro-Environmental Behaviors and Well-Being in Adolescence: The Mediating Role of Place Attachment

Adolescents represent the future generation, so it is important to pay attention to behaviors that involve them as actors in social activities and constitute the expression of an adequate growth path. Engaging in pro-environmental behaviors leads adolescents to do something good for themselves, for their own community, and for the place in which they live, and this type of conduct increases their levels of well-being and place attachment. This study examines the association between pro-environmental behavior and personal and social well-being in a sample of 1925 adolescents aged 14 to 20 years. Structural equation analyses showed a direct positive effect of pro-environmental behavior on personal and social well-being as well as place attachment. The latter partially mediated the relationship between pro-environmental behaviors and personal and social well-being. This study is significant in that it provides new data on how pro-environmental behaviors enhance adolescents’ personal and social well-being by potentially ensuring long-term benefits, thereby suggesting that it is important to stimulate, motivate, and recommend these kinds of action

Seasonal variation of antiretroviral drug exposure during the year: The experience of 10 years of therapeutic drug monitoring

Although studies show an annual trend for immunosuppressive drugs, particularly during different seasons, no data are available for antiretroviral drugs exposures in different periods of the year. For this reason, the aim of this study was to investigate an association between seasonality and antiretroviral drugs plasma concentrations. Antiretroviral drugs exposures were measured with liquid chromatography validated methods. A total of 4148 human samples were analysed. Lopinavir, etravirine and maraviroc levels showed seasonal fluctuation. In detail, maraviroc and etravirine concentrations decreased further in summer than in winter. In contrast, lopinavir concentrations had an opposite trend, increasing more in summer than in winter. The etravirine efficacy cut-off value of 300 ng/mL seems to be affected by seasonality: 77.1% and 22.9% of samples achieved this therapeutic target, respectively, in winter and summer, whereas 30% in winter and 70% in summer did not reach this value. Finally, age over 50 years and summer remained in the final multivariate regression model as predictors of the etravirine efficacy cut-off. This study highlights the seasonal variation in antiretroviral drugs plasma concentrations during the year, leading to a better understanding of inter-individual variability in drug exposures. Studies are required in order to confirm these data, clarifying which aspects may be involved

Analytical validation and clinical application of rapid serological tests for sars-cov-2 suitable for large-scale screening

Recently, large-scale screening for COVID-19 has presented a major challenge, limiting timely countermeasures. Therefore, the application of suitable rapid serological tests could provide useful information, however, little evidence regarding their robustness is currently available. In this work, we evaluated and compared the analytical performance of a rapid lateral-flow test (LFA) and a fast semiquantitative fluorescent immunoassay (FIA) for anti-nucleocapsid (anti-NC) antibodies, with the reverse transcriptase real-time PCR assay as the reference. In 222 patients, LFA showed poor sensitivity (55.9%) within two weeks from PCR, while later testing was more reliable (sensitivity of 85.7% and specificity of 93.1%). Moreover, in a subset of 100 patients, FIA showed high sensitivity (89.1%) and specificity (94.1%) after two weeks from PCR. The coupled application for the screening of 183 patients showed satisfactory concordance (K = 0.858). In conclusion, rapid serological tests were largely not useful for early diagnosis, but they showed good performance in later stages of infection. These could be useful for back-tracing and/or to identify potentially immune subjects

Self-Esteem and Adolescent Bullying/Cyberbullying and Victimization/ Cybervictimization Behaviours: A Person-Oriented Approach

Although previous studies seemed to recognize negative associations between self-esteem and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours, the findings are controversial. The current study tried to shed light on this issue by using a person-oriented approach among Italian adolescents. Participants included 936 students aged 13-16 years. Different domains of self-esteem and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviour during the previous 2-3 months were assessed through a self-administered questionnaire. The results suggested four self-esteem profiles, i.e., school/family-oriented, consistently high, self-derogation, and body/peer-oriented. Students in the consistently high self-esteem profile seemed to be more protected against bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours compared to those in the self-derogation profile. The findings showed that among adolescents there is a degree of heterogeneity in the self-esteem domain associated with different levels of bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviour. This suggests that different domains of self-esteem and their interdependencies play a crucial role during adolescence, with consequences also in terms of diverse patterns of active and passive aggressive behaviour

Victimization in traditional bullying and cyberbullying among Italian preadolescents. An investigation in Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Calabria

In recent years, bullying has been examined in relation to the growth in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by adolescents, opening up a new line of research on \u201ccyberbullying\u201d. Two relevant issues in cyberbullying research are the relationship between cyberbullying and traditional bullying and the nature of cyberbullying phenomenon, with its links to the accessibility and characteristics of the technologies involved. According to national surveys, Italy shows a puzzling access to ICT, and a few studies have investigated with comparable tools the diffusion of cyberbullying across different areas of the Country. In this study we aimed at describing the diffusion of traditional bullying (direct and indirect) and cyberbullying (mobile and Internet) among Italian middle school students from different geographical areas of Italy with respect to the roles of bully and victim. A second aim was to examine the predictors of direct, indirect, mobile and Internet victimization focusing on sociodemographic and contextual variables such as gender, Region, mother\u2019s and father\u2019s level of education and school climate, and for cyberbullying victimization the access to ICTs and the event of being a victim or a bully in traditional bullying. A questionnaire was administered to 1000 Italian adolescents (mean age = 12.3 years) from three Italian regions (Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Calabria). Findings showed higher percentages of adolescents involved in indirect bullying, followed by direct bullying, cyberbullying via mobile phone and via the Internet. Logistic regression analyses showed that gender was significantly predictive of victimization but with different trends across bullying types: males were more likely to be victims of direct bullying, females of indirect bullying and mobile cyberbullying, while this variable had not a predictive role on Internet victimization. A negative school climate perception was a significant predictor for direct, indirect and mobile victimization, but not for Internet victimization. Moreover, being involved as a bully or a victim in traditional bullying increases the risk of being victim of cyberbullying (both via mobile phone and via the Internet). These results point out that bullying and cyberbullying were diffuse in Italy across different regions, with a relevant continuity between traditional bullying and cyberbullying in particular between indirect and mobile bullying, suggesting that virtual contexts may reflect social interactions that preadolescents may have in personal offline relationship

Pharmacogenetics of tenofovir drug transporters in the context of HBV: Is there an impact?

Background: Current treatments for chronic hepatitis B management include orally administered nucleos(t)ide analogues, such as tenofovir (TDF), which is an acyclic adenine nucleotide analogue used both in HBV and human immune deficiency virus (HIV). The course of HBV infection is mainly dependent on viral factors, such as HBV genotypes, immunological features and host genetic variables, but a few data are available in the context of HBV, in particular for polymorphisms of genes encoding proteins involved in drug metabolism and elimination. Consequently, the aim of this study was to evaluate the potential impact of genetic variants on TDF plasma and urine concentrations in patients with HBV, considering the role of HBV genotypes. Methods: A retrospective cohort study at the Infectious Disease Unit of Amedeo di Savoia Hospital, Torino, Italy, was performed. Pharmacokinetic analyses were performed through liquidi chromatography, whereas pharmacogenetic analyses through real-time PCR. Findings: Sixty - eight patients were analyzed: ABCC4 4976 C>T genetic variant showed an impact on urine TDF drug concentrations (p = 0.014). In addition, SLC22A6 453 AA was retained in the final regression multivariate model considering factors predicting plasma concentrations, while ABCC4 4976 TC/CC was the only predictor of urine concentrations in the univariate model. Interpretation: In conclusion, this is the first study showing a potential impact of genetic variants on TDF plasma and urine concentrations in the HBV context, but further studies in different and larger cohorts of patients are required