Problem gambling among older people. An italian study on habits, representations, levels of engagement and psychosocial determinants

Gambling participation among older people has grown over the years. Elders constitute a large and fast-growing population in Italy, but little empirical evidence describes gambling patterns among older Italian adults and the problem gambling (PG)’s psychosocial determinants, so a range of questions which are crucial to orient prevention strategies remain unanswered. The present study aims to investigate habits, representations, levels of engagement in gambling among Italian elders and the role of loneliness, social support and well-being in explaining their problem with gambling. A convenience sample of 165 participants (mean age: 66.93; SD = 5.73; women: 43.1%) was involved. Gambling activities, habits, representations and PG rates were examined. A group “at moderate risk/problem gambling” (scoring >7 on PGSI, n = 40) and a control group (scoring 0 on PGSI, n = 40) were selected from the whole sample, balanced on socio-demographic characteristics; a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the two groups on the target psychosocial variables. 11.5% of the sample was found to meet the PGSI criteria for PG; 26.7% for moderate risk; 11.5% for problem gambling; 50.3% were classified as no-problem gamblers. Scratch cards were the main form of gambling among all groups; the chance to make more money and to distract oneself from other problems were the main reasons to gamble. Finally, the group “at moderate risk/problem gambling,” compared to the control group, expressed higher loneliness, as well as lower perceived social support and well-being

Evaluation of performance at university with the Rasch Analysis

In 2007/2008 the University of Salento has started a degree course in Psychology. Right from the start, the people in charge of the course have been focusing on preventing early dropouts by stimulating a better professional awareness and by ensuring the best possible course experience. To do so, the students were asked increasing performance standards to prevent the choice of university studies as mere alternative to work. This study refers specifically of controlling the training process through the analysis of perfor- mance of students (monitoring career). Normally a review of developments in the curriculum in relation to explanatory variables is performed using sta- tistical inferential model where the dependent variable is the grade obtained in the different disciplines or even the credits acquired by the student. The particular structure of the activity since its inception allows to introduce the evaluation of the curriculum using effectively Rasch Analysis. The model involves the insertion of the exams outcomes analysed in terms of success / failure examination for each of the constituent disciplines of studies. This model establishes a more reliable criteria for the verification of differential variables useful for monitoring the training process (for example: final grade to high school diploma, sex, age, university registration renewal , etc.) and the subsequent management of the training process

Attachment relationships and internalization and externalization problems in a group of adolescents with pathological gambling disorder

Objective: The evidence accumulated in the relevant literature suggests that the presence and evolution of gambling could be correlated with the internalizing and externalizing problems and with the attachment style. This paper aims at exploring this perspective further. In particular, it analyses how such risk factors interact within the specific context of adolescent gambling disorder. Method: The sample comprises 91 adolescents, 61 male and 30 female, in the 17-22 age range (M = 17.77; SD = 0.98). A structural equation model was used to examine the relationship between the Youth Self-Report latent factors and pathological gambling, and the mode of attachment was assumed to act as a moderator. Results: Our results suggest that in the group characterized by a fearful attachment style there was a positive relationship between somatization and propensity to risk (p = 0.008), whereas in the dismissing attachment group there was a positive relationship between a greater tendency to delinquent behaviour and gambling risk (p = 0.042). Conclusions: The various insecure attachment stylespatterns may contribute in different ways to the development of oppositional-provocative behaviour and problems of conduct in adolescents

QUASUS: A Tool for Measuring the Parents’ School Satisfaction

No validated instruments for assessing school users’ satisfaction are available. This paper means to contribute to address this lack. It outlines a new instrument of measurement of school users’ satisfaction – QUASUS (QUestionnaire for the Analysis of the School User’s Satisfaction). The main peculiarity of QUASUS lies in the fact that it pays specific attention to the dimension of prosumership, namely the view of the client-service co-constructive relation as a constitutive component of the service’s construction and delivery. The study reports the output of an initial validation study of the instrument. Based on two samples of parents (N = 2802 and N = 1365) from Italian schools, analyses provided support to the hypotheses tested: QUASUS proved to be characterized by a good level of reliability (HP1); is able to detect the component comprising the school users’ satisfaction (HP2); proves a global connotation of the experience of the school by a unidimensional measure of the overall satisfaction (HP3), associated significantly with the prosumership (HP4)

Considering the socio-cultural terrain of hazardous behaviours : a cross-cultural study on problem gambling among Maltese and Italian people

The literature on problem gambling (PG) has received little attention regarding the role of how people make sense of their social experiences and community settings. Based on a semiotic and cultural perspective, the present study used a cross-national approach to investigate whether there are significant differences in the socio-cultural dimensions characterizing problem gamblers in two different European countries, Italy and Malta. Perceived social support, cultural models and PG were assessed in a convenience sample of 134 subjects, balanced by gender, job status and educational status (Malta n=67; mean age 42.00±16.268; Italia n=67; mean age 43.37±14.446). Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied to test the relationships among variables; multi-group technique was used to test for any effects defined by the country variable. The findings show that the lower the perceived social support, the higher the likelihood of PG for both national groups. Maltese and Italians exhibited differences vis-à-vis the cultural models that constitute a risk factor for PG. In the case of Italy, a devaluation of the context one belongs to, along with the feeling that one can only rely on oneself, is related to PG. In the case of Malta, PG appears to be related to a trusting attitude toward the micro- and macro-social context. This study suggests that understanding why people engage in hazardous behaviours requires an in-depth consideration of the socio-cultural contexts and networks where people’s ways of evaluating their social experience develop. Implications for designing community PG prevention interventions are discussed.peer-reviewe

Toponymy of the Murter island, University of Zadar, Center of the Adriatic onomastic research, Onomastica Adriatica Series, vol. 4 (chief editor Vladimir Skračić), Zadar, 2010

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0189885.]

Valutazione ed assunzione dei comportamenti a rischio tra i giovani leccesi. Uno studio sui profili sociali e culturali

Lo studio qui presentato ha inteso esplorare il profilo sociale e culturale connesso all’ assunzione dei comportamenti a rischio in un campione di adolescenti leccesi, reclutati presso 5 scuole secondarie superiori (licei e istituti tecnici), per un campione totale di 391 studenti (età media: 16,88; d.s.: ,752). In particolare, lo studio ha inteso esplorare il rapporto tra assunzione del rischio e le seguenti dimensioni psicosociali, per come percepite dai rispondenti: • modelli culturali di interpretazione dell’ambiente sociale • supporto sociale • approvazione del rischio da parte dei pari • pratiche famigliari (trasparenza nella comunicazione geni-tori-figli, norme, supervisione parentale) I comportamenti target considerati - consumo di alcol, di droghe, di nicotina, comportamenti sessuali non protetti, guida pericolosa – sono stati scelti in ragione della diffusione che presentano tra gli adolescenti e del riconosciuto rischio cui espongono, oltre che per l’attenzione ad essi rivolta dalle politiche della salute