A qualitative study on minority stress subjectively experienced by transgender and gender nonconforming people in Italy

A great amount of quantitative research has largely demonstrated that transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people experience high rates of minority stress, against which they are able to exercise resilience and to use adaptive strategies buffering the negative effects of stress on health. Notwithstanding, qualitative investigations on how TGNC people subjectively experience minority stress are still scarce. This study aims at exploring the subjective experiences of minority stress through a focus group with 8 Italian TGNC individuals (5 male-to-female, 2 female-to-male, and 1 genderqueer; M = 25; SD = 5). Narratives were analyzed through the deductive thematic analysis. The analysis generated four main categories: (1) family rejection; (2) visibility of the body; (3) negative effects of family violence on health; and (4) integration of TGNC identity. Results offer an in-depth exploration of minority stress processes in TGNC people, as well as the impact of stress on health and adaptive strategies to face with stigma. Suggestions for clinical practice are discussed

Intelligent Advanced User Interfaces for Monitoring Mental Health Wellbeing

It has become pressing to develop objective and automatic measurements integrated in intelligent diagnostic tools for detecting and monitoring depressive states and enabling an increased precision of diagnoses and clinical decision-makings. The challenge is to exploit behavioral and physiological biomarkers and develop Artificial Intelligent (AI) models able to extract information from a complex combination of signals considered key symptoms. The proposed AI models should be able to help clinicians to rapidly formulate accurate diagnoses and suggest personalized intervention plans ranging from coaching activities (exploiting for example serious games), support networks (via chats, or social networks), and alerts to caregivers, doctors, and care control centers, reducing the considerable burden on national health care institutions in terms of medical, and social costs associated to depression cares

Health of Non-binary and Genderqueer People: A Systematic Review

Background: Non-binary and genderqueer (NBGQ) people are those who do not identify within the gender binary system (male vs. female), not falling exclusively in man/male or woman/female normative categories. A higher proportion of NBGQ people is usually found within young persons. This population is marginalized and, as such, is at risk of stigmatization and of developing negative health outcomes. As literature on the health of NBGQ people is sparse, this study aims at systematically review the limited studies on this field. Methods: The research questions which guided the systematic review were: (1) What are the differences in the health levels between NBGQ and binary transgender (BT) individuals? (2) What are the differences in the health levels between NBGQ and cisgender individuals? (3) Which medical and psychological interventions are most suitable for improving NBGQ health? According to PRISMA guidelines, a systematic search was conducted in PubMed, PsycInfo, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Results: Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria for the current systematic review. Among them, 9 were focused on the health differences between NBGQ and BT individuals, 4 of the latter and 1 individually were focused on the health differences between NBGQ and cisgender individuals, and 1 was focused on the evaluation of health outcomes related to medical procedures. No studies assessed psychological interventions aimed at improving health in NBGQ individuals. All studies were cross-sectional, did not generally recruit a large sample of NBGQ individuals, and used non-probability sample design. Results related to the difference in health between NBGQ and BT were mixed; indeed, some found a better health status while others a worse one. Results related to the differences in health between NBGQ and cisgender highlighted higher health needs in NBGQ than in BT individuals. The only study analyzing the effects of medical interventions on health found that NBGQ female-assigned at birth individuals improved their quality of life after chest surgery. Conclusions: Although scholars are starting to pay attention to the NBGQ health, research needs to be expanded both in terms of methodology and research contents. Clinical, health-related social policies, and research recommendations in this field are reported

EEGs as potential predictors of virtual agents' acceptance

Over the last decade, much effort has been made to develop robots and virtual agents acting as assistants of elderly people in order to support them in their daily activities. In this context users' acceptance of such virtual assistants is fundamental for engaging them in order to maximize the assistance's effectiveness and users' comfort. Therefore, improving assessment techniques for elders' acceptance of virtual agents is necessary for understanding the impressions they arouse and determining their design accordingly. This paper is a proposition to introduce an EEG emotion detection procedure to gain further insight in implementing effective virtual agents' acceptance

Internalized Transphobia, Resilience, and Mental Health: Applying the Psychological Mediation Framework to Italian Transgender Individuals

Transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people are a highly-stigmatized population. For this reason, they might internalize society’s normative gender attitudes and develop negative mental health outcomes. As an extension of the minority stress model, the psychological mediation framework sheds light on psychological processes through which anti-transgender discrimination might affect mental health. Within this framework, the current study aimed at assessing in 149 TGNC Italian individuals the role of internalized transphobia as a mediator between anti-transgender discrimination and mental health, considering resilience as the individual-level coping mechanism buffering this relationship. The results suggest that both indicators of internalized transphobia (i.e., shame and alienation) mediate the relationship between anti-transgender discrimination and depression, while only alienation mediates the relationship between anti-transgender discrimination and anxiety. Furthermore, the results suggest that the indirect relation between anti-transgender discrimination and anxiety through alienation is conditional on low and moderate levels of resilience. Findings have important implications for clinical practice and psycho-social interventions to reduce stigma and stress caused by interpersonal and individual stigma

Thermography as a method to detect dental anxiety in oral surgery

(1) Background: the aim of this study was to evaluate if dental anxiety can be measured objectively using thermal infrared imaging. (2) Methods: Patients referred to the Department of Oral Surgery of the University of Naples Federico II and requiring dental extractions were consecutively enrolled in the study. Face thermal distribution images of the patients were acquired before and during their first clinical examination using infrared thermal cameras. The data were analyzed in relation to five regions of interest (ROI) of the patient’s face (nose, ear, forehead, zygoma, chin). The differences in the temperatures assessed between the two measurements for each ROI were evaluated by using paired T‐test. The Pearson correlation and linear regression were performed to evaluate the association between differences in temperatures and Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) questionnaire score, age, and gender; (3) results: sixty participants were enrolled in the study (28 males and 32 females; mean age 57.4 year‐old; age range 18–80 year‐old). Only for nose and ear zone there was a statistically significant difference between measurements at baseline and visit. Correlation between the thermal imaging measurements and the scores of the MDAS questionnaire was found for nose and ear, but not for all of the other regions. (4) Conclusions: the study demonstrated a potential use of thermal infrared imaging to measure dental anxiety

Affiliative bonds and cruel behavior in childhood interspecific relationships: A conceptual framework on the psychodynamics of affect regulation

Background: Childhood interspecific relationships can be viewed as a mirror of the person’s capacity to interact with other living beings. The interspecific relationship can involve different attachment styles, affect regulation skills, transitional object dynamics, and self-awareness and mentalization processes. Yet interspecific relationships can also be disrupted, since they can be associated with cruel behavior toward animals, which is in turn related to possible psychopathology. Method: We provided a conceptual framework based on the literature addressing the interspecific relationship in both its adaptive and positive features as well as in its disrupted aspects. Discussion: Pets have often been regarded as attachment figures that can aid children in socialization and growth processes. They have been deemed to represent “social catalysts” that tend to facilitate human relationships, thus increasing prosocial behaviors. On the dark side of the pet-child interaction, childhood abuse of animals tends to be associated with behavioral and emotional problems that have been thought of as underlying psychopathology (e.g., conduct disorder and antisocial personality traits). Childhood cruelty to animals seems to accompany emotion dysregulation, poor social information processing, and low empathy. Conclusions: Since the child-pet relationship has substantial implications for the individual’s mental health and for the potential development of psychopathology, addressing children’s attitudes toward animals can aid in understanding the affective and emotional dimensions of their interpersonal experience

Online sexual activities in Italian older adults: The role of gender, sexual orientation, and permissiveness

Introduction Online sexual activities (OSAs) are sexual behaviors involving online sexual content and stimuli and are categorized into non-arousal (N-OSAs), solitary arousal (S-OSAs), and partnered arousal activities (P-OSAs). As such activities in older age remain largely underexamined, this study aimed to explore OSAs in a sample of Italian older adults, analyzing their associations with gender and sexual orientation, considering sexual permissiveness as a moderator. Methods One hundred and fourteen cisgender participants (85 men and 29 women) aged from 52 to 79 years old (M = 62.57, SD = 6.19) were recruited between September 2019 and January 2020 to participate in an online cross-sectional survey on OSAs. Results A total of 58.1% of participants had engaged in S-OSAs at least 2–3 times during the previous month, while a lower percentage of participants had engaged in N-OSAs (38.6%) and P-OSAs (29.9%) at least 2–3 times during the previous month. Men were more likely to be engaged in S-OSAs than women. Being non-heterosexual was associated with an increase in engagement in N-OSAs and S-OSAs, but not in P-OSAs. Sexual permissiveness was significantly associated with N-OSAs and S-OSAs, but not with P-OSAs, and did not moderate either the relationship of gender with OSAs or that of sexual orientation with OSAs. Conclusions This study sheds light on the need to include online resources in sexual health educational programs addressed at older people, as well as in training programs addressed at healthcare professionals and social workers working with this population

Process evaluation of animal assisted therapies with children: The role of the human-animal bond on the therapeutic alliance, depth of elaboration, and smoothness of sessions

Objective: The current study examined the change processes in three Animal Assisted Therapies (AATs) by assessing the relationship between the human-animal bond and the therapeutic alliance, depth of elaboration, and smoothness of treatment sessions. Methods: This was a retrospective study assessing videotaped AATs conducted with three children aged from 7 to 9 years old from the observer perspective. The AATs were based on the Federico II Model of Healthcare Zooanthropology, and each consisted in 8 sessions. A one-way analysis of variance and linear regression models was performed. Results: The human-animal bond, therapeutic alliance, depth of elaboration, and smoothness significantly improved during the sessions. Furthermore, the improvement in therapeutic dimensions proved to be a function of the increase in the human-animal bond. Conclusions: The findings have provided empirical evidence of the change processes occurring during AATs with children, offering some limited but specific insights into the interspecific relationship as a central axis of such treatments

Health-related quality of life in patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms: a two-wave longitudinal study

Purpose: Scientific knowledge on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with neuroendocrine neoplasm (NEN) is still limited and longitudinal assessment of HRQoL over the time in NEN patients are scarce. The current study aimed to assess the role of clinical severity and heterogeneity of NEN, as well as resilience, in the HRQoL of NEN patients over the course of a year. Methods: 39 consecutive NEN patients (25 men and 14 women) aged from 29 to 73 years participated in a longitudinal Italian multicentric study. The main outcome measure concerned the severity and heterogeneity of NEN, HRQoL, and resilience. Results: Over the course of a year, higher levels of the global health (GH) were associated to the absence of distant metastases, while the presence of metastases with higher levels of fatigue, diarrhea, and financial difficulties. Higher levels of resilience are still associated with better GH and lower levels of fatigue, diarrhea, and financial difficulties, but no longer with constipation. Furthermore, patients with gastroenteropancreatic NEN still have higher scores on constipation, but not on GH, fatigue, diarrhea, and financial difficulties. Patients with hereditary NEN continue to have greater GH than those with a sporadic NEN and lower fatigue, diarrhea, and financial difficulties. Conclusion: These findings showed that the effects of severity and clinical heterogeneity of the NEN on HRQoL may change over time. This evidence should lead clinicians to monitor the HRQoL of NEN patients throughout the course of the disease and psychologists to implement evidence-based resilience interventions