The Impact of the COVID-19 Emergency on the Quality of Life of the General Population

COVID-19 is a pandemic that has forced many states to declare restrictive measures in order to prevent its wider spread. These measures are necessary to protect the health of adults, children, and people with disabilities. Long quarantine periods could cause an increase in anxiety crises, fear of contagion, and post-traumatic stress disorder (frustration, boredom, isolation, fear, insomnia, difficulty concentrating). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that can develop in subjects who have been or have witnessed a traumatic, catastrophic, or violent event, or who have become aware of a traumatic experience that happened to a loved one. In fact, from current cases, it emerges that the prevalence of PTSD varies from 1% to 9% in the general population and can reach 50%–60% in subgroups of subjects exposed to traumas considered particularly serious. PTSD develops as a consequence of one or more physical or psychological traumatic events, such as exposure to natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis; wars, torture, death threats; road accidents, robbery, air accidents; diseases with unfavorable prognoses; complicated or traumatic mourning; physical and sexual abuse and abuse during childhood; victimization and discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity. It can also develop following changes in lifestyle habits caused by the COVID-19 epidemic

Adventures of clinical psychology

Clinical psychology strives to fully grasp the person in his totality and in his individuality, helping him adequately address his own deep internal suffering and discomfort, social uneasiness, and harmonize his own needs, desires and, attachments [...]

Embracing the complexity of neurodevelopmental disorders

Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of neuropsychiatric diseases that affect the developing brain due to a complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors [...]

Asymmetric toroidal eddy currents (ATEC) to explain sideways forces at JET

During some JET vertical displacement events (VDEs) plasma current and position are found to be toroidally asymmetric. When asymmetries lock, the vessel has been observed to move horizontally, consequently strong horizontal forces are expected following plasma asymmetries, whether locked or rotating. The cause of horizontal forces is, as already identified in previous works, the asymmetric circulation of current in the structures. The physics mechanism responsible for these asymmetric currents is instead an open issue and it is the object of the present analysis. In particular it will be shown that the asymmetry is not due to a direct exchange of current between plasma and structure (as in the case of halo currents) but to asymmetric conductive paths which arise, in the structures, when the plasma column asymmetrically wets the wall. Simulations of this phenomenon using finite element (FE) models have been conducted to reproduce the JET observation during locked and rotating asymmetric VDEs. Estimated sideways force, asymmetry (I p asym) and normalized asymmetry (Ap asym) of plasma current, vertical position at different toroidal locations during the disruption and halo current asymmetry have been compared with measurements done at JET during upward AVDEs. The substantial match between experiments and simulations confirms the soundness of the assumptions. Furthermore, the same physical model applied to downward VDEs shows that divertor support and coils, together with the geometry of the limiting surfaces, considerably lessen asymmetric loads as experienced at JET after installing those components.EURATOM 63305

The new covid-19 related psychological distress pandemic

Although a few years have passed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a large body of scientific literature is already present on the impact that the worldwide spread of the virus has had on people's quality of life [...]

Acupressure therapy for insomnia in adolescents: a polysomnographic study

Background: The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of acupressure therapy in a sample of adolescents with insomnia using a standard polysomnographic evaluation. Methods: For this study, 25 adolescents affected by psychophysiological insomnia (mean age 15.04 \ub1 1.18 years, 12 boys) were enrolled. A device known as the Sea-Band\uae was used by the patients in order to improve their symptoms related to difficulty in falling asleep. All subjects enrolled underwent two sets of consecutive overnight polysomnographic studies in the Sleep Laboratory of the Clinic of Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, comprising two studies at baseline (before treatment) and another two studies at the end of 6 months of treatment. Results: At the end of 6 months of treatment, there was a significant increase in all macrostructural parameters of sleep duration, and a reduction in sleep onset latency, wake after sleep onset, and stage 2 sleep. Moreover, the study group showed a significant increase in percent sleep efficiency (P , 0.001) and in slow wave sleep representation. Conclusion: Acupressure is a noninvasive, safe, and effective method for the management of insomnia in adolescents, with good compliance and no adverse effects

Do mental health and vitality mediate the relationship between perceived control over time and fear of COVID-19? A survey in an Italian sample

Several studies evidenced increased elevated symptomatology levels in anxiety, general stress, depression, and post-traumatic stress related to COVID-19. Real difficulties in the effective control of time that could be responsible for mental health issues and loss of vitality were also reported. Prior literature highlighted how perceived control over time significantly modulates anxiety disorders and promotes psychological well-being. To verify the hypothesis that perceived control over time predicts fear of COVID-19 and mental health and vitality mediate this relationship, we performed an online survey on a sample of 301 subjects (female = 68%; Mage = 22.12, SD = 6.29; age range = 18–57 years), testing a parallel mediation model using PROCESS macro (model 4). All participants responded to self-report measures of perceived control over time, COVID-19 fear, mental health, and vitality subscales of the Short-Form-36 Health Survey. Results corroborate the hypotheses of direct relationships between all the study variables and partially validate the mediation’s indirect effect. Indeed, mental health (a1b1 = −0.06; CI: LL = −0.11; UL = −0.01; p < 0.001) rather than vitality (a2b2 = −0.06; CI: LL = −0.09; UL = 0.03; n.s.) emerges as a significant mediator between perceived control over time and fear of COVID-19. Practical implications of the study about treatment programs based on perceived control over time and emotional coping to prevent fear and anxiety toward the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed

Maternal personality profile of children affected by migraine

Background: Empirical evidence of the important role of the family in primary pediatric headache has grown significantly in the last few years, although the interconnections between the dysfunctional process and the family interaction are still unclear. Even though the role of parenting in childhood migraine is well known, no studies about the personality of parents of migraine children have been conducted. The aim of the present study was to assess, using an objective measure, the personality profile of mothers of children affected by migraine without aura (MoA). Materials and methods: A total of 269 mothers of MoA children (153 male, 116 female, aged between 6 and 12 years; mean 8.93 ± 3.57 years) were compared with the findings obtained from a sample of mothers of 587 healthy children (316 male, 271 female, mean age 8.74 ± 3.57 years) randomly selected from schools in the Campania, Umbria, Calabria, and Sicily regions. Each mother filled out the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory – second edition (MMPI-2), widely used to diagnose personality and psychological disorders. The t-test was used to compare age and MMPI-2 clinical basic and content scales between mothers of MoA and typical developing children, and Pearson’s correlation test was used to evaluate the relation between MMPI-2 scores of mothers of MoA children and frequency, intensity, and duration of migraine attacks of their children. Results: Mothers of MoA children showed significantly higher scores in the paranoia and social introversion clinical basic subscales, and in the anxiety, obsessiveness, depression, health concerns, bizarre mentation, cynicism, type A, low self-esteem, work interference, and negative treatment indicator clinical content subscales (P , 0.001 for all variables). Moreover, Pearson’s correlation analysis showed a significant relationship between MoA frequency of children and anxiety (r = 0.4903, P = 0.024) and low self-esteem (r = 0.5130, P = 0.017), while the MoA duration of children was related with hypochondriasis (r = 0.6155, P = 0.003), hysteria (r = 0.6235, P = 0.003), paranoia (r = 0.5102, P = 0.018), psychasthenia (r = 0.4806, P = 0.027), schizophrenia (r = 0.4350, P = 0.049), anxiety (r = 0.4332, P = 0.050), and health concerns (r = 0.7039, P , 0.001) MMPI-2 scores of their mothers. Conclusion: This could be considered a preliminary study that indicates the potential value of maternal personality assessment for better comprehension and clinical management of children affected by migraine, though further studies on the other primary headaches are necessary

VISUOMOTOR INTEGRATION SKILLS IN CHILDREN AFFECTED BY OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA SYNDROME: A CASE-CONTROL STUDY

Introduction: Sleep related breathing disorders (SRBD) consist of frequent and repetitive episodes of pharyngeal obstruction during sleep, with consequent intermittent hypoxia, sleep architecture fragmentation, daytime sleepiness and/or behavioural problems and executive impairment in children. When untreated, SRBD and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA) mainly, may impact school performance, cognition, metabolism, and cardiovascular function. Aim of the present study is assessing the visuomotor integration skills in children affected by OSA. Materials and methods: 57 subjects affected by mild-to severe OSA, PSG diagnosed according to international diagnostic criteria, (31 males and 26 females) (mean age 10.8; SD \ub1 2.49) and 83 healthy children (45 males and 38 females) (mean age 9.95; SD \ub1 1.87; p = 0.725). All subjects underwent assessment of motor coordination skills with Movement-ABC tests and visual-motor integration ability with Visual Motor Integration (VMI) test. Results: The subjects with OSA show a worse average performances in all items of Movement ABC (p <0.001) respect of controls. Specifically, children with OSAS show significantly higher values of total points (p <0.001), manual dexterity (p <0.001), ball skills (p <0.001) and balance (p <0.001). Accordingly, the average centile in OSA children at the MABC-test is significantly reduced compared with controls (p <0.001). (Table 1) On the other hand, the VMI test evaluation among children with OSAS shows worst result in total Visuo-Motor Integration (p <0.001), and in Motor Coordination sub-item (p <0.001) than controls. (Table 1). Conclusion: Our results also support for children and adolescents the hypothesis that executive functioning deficits might be linked primarily to the degree of severity nocturnal hypoxemia rather than daytime sleepiness, although several other studies are needed