Career Adaptability, Resilience,and Life Satisfaction in Italian and Belgian middle school student

Young people need to help to prepare to plan their future, to consider multiple career options, to be supported to develop positive life trajectories and to cope with social-economic conditions related to uneasiness, discomfort, and confusion. Considering the recent studies and the Life Design approach, the present study aimed at analyzing the relationship between career adaptability, resilience and life satisfaction on Belgian and Italian middle school students' life satisfaction. Specifically was hypothesized that career adaptability, directly and indirectly (i.e., through resilience) would predict life satisfaction in Italian and Belgian middle school students. Furthermore, it was predicted that the conceptual model would be comparable across countries. The data suggest that career adaptability is directly and indirectly, through resilience, related to life satisfaction in both the Italian and Belgium middle school students. These results have important implications for practice notably to support middle school students in their life design process

Life Design, Career Adaptability, and Life Satisfaction

Life Design approach represents a new paradigm for career counseling and development in the 21st century augmenting 20th-century Person-Environment (P-E) fit and developmental models by focusing on making meaning through work. Life Design emerged from work by an international group of scholars and practitioners in seven countries to better account the complexities of work and careers brought about by today’s economic conditions, globalization, and the digital revolution (Savickas et al., 2009; Nota & Rossier, 2015). People today experience a new social arrangement of work that moves from permanent to more temporary jobs, from linear to dynamic career trajectories, and from specific career knowledge to lifelong learning. Moreover, it emphasizes the need to support people to become expert in co-construction and Life Design processes, to anticipate and deal with career transitions, and to consider the hope for a foreseeable future, optimism, future orientation, and resilience, useful to individual’s future planning and behavior, and career adaptability, that is a modern world workers’ essential resource to manage frequent career and life transitions. According to Life Design approach, the research project is articulated in three phases. The first phase was aimed at the validation and development of instruments to assess the variables above described. In this respect two questionnaires were developed: ‘Vision about future’, to assess hope, optimism and negative view towards the future and ‘Design My Future’, to assess the Youth resilience and future orientation. . Explorative and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were used to analyze factor structure, evaluated convergent and discriminant validity. Multi-group Confirmatory Factor Analysis procedures was conducted to verify the factorial structural across gender. The second phase was finalized to investigate the relationships between career adaptability, positive variable, that is, hope, optimism, future orientation, resilience and life satisfaction. This phase was characterized by the development of different research projects, aiming to test the positive variables mediating role inside the adaptability and life satisfaction report. 1. In the first study, a cross cultural work, in collaboration with the University of Lausanne, 537 young Swiss adolescents and 727 young Italian adolescents were involved in order to assess the mediating role of hope and optimism in the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction relatively to both Countries. The conceptual model across countries was also verified. 2. In the second study 120 adults with disability were involved in order to investigate the mediating role of hope in the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction. 3. In the third study 152 (62 fathers and 90 mothers) parents of children with intellectual disabilities were involved to investigate the mediating role of resilience in the relationship between career adaptability and life satisfaction. Structural Equation Models (SEM) were conducted for the studies to test the models indicated above and to define the structure of the relationships between the considered different variables. The third phase of the project was focused on the development and implementation of an online method based on the Life Design's theoretical principles. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention, a study was conducted with 200 middle school students: 100 of the participants were assigned to the traditional intervention group and 100 were assigned to the on-line intervention group aiming to increase their level of career adaptability and life satisfaction. A variance analysis with repeated measures was carried out to evaluate pre- and post-test differences between the two intervention groups on levels of adaptability, life satisfaction, and wishes toward the future. Results indicated that students in the on-line intervention group showed higher levels of concern, control, curiosity and life satisfaction than those in the traditional intervention group. Also, they suggested that intervention increased students’ narratives wishes, richer in aspects useful for a career design more in tune with our times. Overall, the results underline the importance of preventive career education activities focusing on strengthening career adaptability, which in turn can sustain the development of positive expectations towards future and life satisfaction concerning both adolescents and adults.

L’orientamento come azione corale a supporto di percorsi universitari inclusivi

Young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), after school, enjoy few opportunities to live new inclusive experiences. Specifically, the paper documents, through a single case study, the educational itinerary at the university of a young man with autism spectrum syndrome who came out of secondary school only with the certificate of attendance. The results highlighted the crucial synergy between all the actors involved, to better guide the student, coherently connecting his interests and aspirations with the educational offer.I ragazzi con disabilità intellettiva e dello sviluppo (IDD), al termine della scuola, godono di scarse opportunità di vivere nuove esperienze inclusive. Nello specifico, il contributo documenta, attraverso uno studio di caso singolo, l’itinerario formativo all’università di un giovane con sindrome dello spettro autistico uscito dalla scuola secondaria con il solo certificato di frequenza. Gli esiti hanno messo in luce la necessaria sinergia tra tutti gli attori coinvolti, al fine di orientare al meglio lo studente, connettendo in modo coerente i suoi interessi e aspirazioni con l’offerta didattica

Life Design for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future

Societies today are highly complex and often impacted by uncertainty, rapid change, globalization, and inequality, all of which have significant impact on the wellbeing of people. These changes make it more difficult not only for a great part of the population to live in the present, but also for succeeding generations to aspire to and imagine a possible future. Considering this, career guidance needs a change of pace that can only be associated with investments in inclusion and sustainability. In this chapter we provide a brief historical excursion through the social role that career guidance has played through the years, and then outline possible actions that career guidance professionals could take so as to embrace, sustain, and foster the creation of a better future for everyone and to contribute to the creation of inclusive and sustainable societies.

Genetic predisposition and induced pro-inflammatory/pro-oxidative status may play a role in increased atherothrombotic events in nilotinib treated chronic myeloid leukemia patients

Several reports described an increased risk of cardiovascular (CV) events, mainly atherothrombotic, in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) patients receiving nilotinib. However, the underlying mechanism remains elusive. The objective of the current cross-sectional retrospective study is to address a potential correlation between Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (TKIs) treatment and CV events. One hundred and 10 chronic phase CML patients in complete cytogenetic response during nilotinib or imatinib, were screened for CV events and evaluated for: traditional CV risk factors, pro/anti-inflammatory biochemical parameters and detrimental ORL1 gene polymorphisms (encoding for altered oxidized LDL receptor-1). Multivariate analysis of the whole cohort showed that the cluster of co-existing nilotinib treatment, dyslipidaemia and G allele of LOX-1 polymorphism was the only significant finding associated with CV events. Furthermore, multivariate analysis according to TKI treatment confirmed IVS4-14 G/G LOX-1 polymorphism as the strongest predictive factor for a higher incidence of CV events in nilotinib patients. Biochemical assessment showed an unbalanced pro-inflammatory cytokines network in nilotinib vs imatinib patients. Surprisingly, pre-existing traditional CV risk factors were not always predictive of CV events. We believe that in nilotinib patients an induced "inflammatory/oxidative status", together with a genetic pro-atherothrombotic predisposition, may favour the increased incidence of CV events. Prospective studies focused on this issue are ongoing

BNT162B2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in heart and lung transplanted young adults: is an alternative SARS-CoV-2 immune response surveillance needed?

[no abstract available

Clinical Features, Cardiovascular Risk Profile, and Therapeutic Trajectories of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Candidate for Oral Semaglutide Therapy in the Italian Specialist Care

Introduction: This study aimed to address therapeutic inertia in the management of type 2 diabetes (T2D) by investigating the potential of early treatment with oral semaglutide. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted between October 2021 and April 2022 among specialists treating individuals with T2D. A scientific committee designed a data collection form covering demographics, cardiovascular risk, glucose control metrics, ongoing therapies, and physician judgments on treatment appropriateness. Participants completed anonymous patient questionnaires reflecting routine clinical encounters. The preferred therapeutic regimen for each patient was also identified. Results: The analysis was conducted on 4449 patients initiating oral semaglutide. The population had a relatively short disease duration (42%  60% of patients, and more often than sitagliptin or empagliflozin. Conclusion: The study supports the potential of early implementation of oral semaglutide as a strategy to overcome therapeutic inertia and enhance T2D management