Evaluation of Effectiveness of the Unplugged Program on Gambling Behaviours among Adolescents: Study Protocol of the Experimental Controlled Study "GAPUnplugged"

Gambling risk behaviour is an emerging problem among adolescents. "Unplugged" is an effective Social Influence curriculum for preventing substance use among students. This study aims to develop and test a new component focused on gambling added to the Unplugged program. Schools of Piedmont region and Rome city were invited to participate in the study. A self-completed anonymous questionnaire including questions on socio-demographic characteristics, addictive behaviours, beliefs, attitudes and risk perceptions about gambling, normative perceptions, parental practices, school climate, refusal skills, impulsiveness, self-esteem, antisocial behaviours and sensation seeking was prepared for baseline and follow-up surveys. The protocol of the study was submitted and approved by the Novara Ethical Committee and registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05630157, Protocol ID: 080.742, 11/17/2022). Twenty-nine schools accepted to participate in the study. Sixty-three classes (1325 students) satisfied the eligibility criteria for intervention and were allocated to the intervention arm, and the other 61 (1269 students) were allocated to the control arm. Because of drop-out, absentees, refusals, and invalid questionnaires, data on 1874 students (998 in the intervention and 876 in the control arm), were available for the analysis at baseline. Data management of follow-up questionnaires is in progress. Results of the present study will be useful to clarify the effectiveness of prevention interventions in reducing gambling behaviours among adolescents. Moreover, this will be the first experience of evaluating a new component focused on a different risk behaviour, added to a curriculum previously shown as effective on other risk behaviours

Ability of phytoplankton trait sensitivity to highlight anthropogenic pressures in Mediterranean lagoons: A size spectra sensitivity index (ISS-phyto)

Size spectra exhibit common patterns of variation and predictable responses to pressures across ecosystem types, functional guilds and taxonomic groups. Here, we extend the size spectra approach to phytoplankton ecological status assessment in transitional waters by developing, testing and validating a multi-metric index of size spectra sensitivity (ISS-phyto), which integrates size structure metrics with others such as phytoplankton diversity, biomass and sensitivity of size classes to anthropogenic disturbance. The ability of various theoretical models of size spectra sensitivity to discriminate between disturbed and undisturbed ecosystems and levels of anthropogenic stress was evaluated. We used data on phytoplankton samples collected in 14 Mediterranean and Black sea transitional water ecosystems (coastal lagoons) from Italy, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, and compared the models\u2019 efficiency by looking at their pressure\u2013impact response along salinity and enrichment gradients, the latter quantified as variations in dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP). Data from a fifteenth Mediterranean lagoon was used for external validation purposes. Right asymmetric models of size class sensitivity, implying higher sensitivity of smaller cell size classes, were found to contribute to the ISS-phyto multimetric tool more effectively than symmetric and left asymmetric models, distinguishing disturbed from undisturbed lagoons and disturbed from undisturbed stations within the same lagoon. When based on right asymmetric sensitivity models, i.e., those that were most efficient in identifying anthropogenic impacts, ISS-phyto also showed the best fit of pressure\u2013response relationships along the salinity and enrichment gradients; at low to high levels of impact ISS response was driven by size class sensitivity and at very high impacts by phytoplankton biomass. A scheme for the classification of Ecological Quality Status based on ISS-phyto is proposed and validated. The validation procedure found that ISS-phyto is an effective and sensitive monitoring tool, robust, easy to apply and to inter-calibrate among laboratories