The mental state in perpetrators of violent crime: a short case report regarding preliminary investigation with the adult attachment interview

Given the influence of the quality of childhood experiences upon psychological development (Bowlby, 1988) and its role in the involvement in criminal activities (Farrington, 1994), it has been hypothesized that adverse childhood events could facilitate a life path marked by criminal offences. This study in-volved the analysis of the Adult Attachment Interview of 7 offenders convicted for violent crimes against the person (experimental group) and 7 official non-offenders (control group), whose data came from a study that recruited fathers of preterm infants. The groups were matched for socio-demographic variables (e.g. age and level of education) and for attachment patterns. The results of this study are preliminary. Implications for practice, also within the criminal justice system, are discusse

Stati mentali in autori di crimini violenti. Dati preliminari di una ricerca clinico-forense con l'ausilio dell'adult attachment interview

Nota l’incidenza della qualità delle esperienze infantili sullo sviluppo psicologico dell’uomo (Bowlby, 1988) e nel coinvolgimento in attività devianti (Farrington, 1994), è stato ipotizzato che eventi sfavorevoli infantili possano favorire l’evoluzione di un percorso di vita segnato da condotte criminose. Lo studio ha considerato l’analisi dell’Adult Attachment Interview di 7 soggetti detenuti per reati violenti contro la persona (gruppo sperimentale) e 7 soggetti estranei al circuito giudiziario (gruppo di controllo), i cui dati derivano da uno studio che reclutava padri di bambini pretermine. I gruppi sono stati confrontati per esaminare l'incidenza dei modelli di attaccamento e le differenze rispetto a specifiche esperienze affettive con i caregiver. I risultati suggestivi sono da considerarsi preliminari. Infine, implicazioni per la pratica e input per studi futuri sono discussi

Chi crede alle Fake News? Aspetti psicologici e criminologici dei protagonisti dell’era della post-verità

This article offers a review of scientific reading on the subject of susceptibility to disinformation. Although it is an insidious problem, little attention is still given to the psychological variables involved in this phenomenon, just as there are still no editorial rules that protect the correct dissemination of online news. After defining the multiple facets of fake news, the Authors explore the individual differences involved in perceived correct or incorrect accuracy in Fake News and in sharing behavior. In conclusion, starting from the analysis of the criminological-clinical aspects of the phenomenon of in-terest, the attention of the scholars of the criminological and psychological disciplines is drawn to the need to initiate more studies, research and contribute to establishing strategies for dealing with the phenomenon, possibly considering authors and victims of fake news.Questo articolo propone una rassegna della lettura scientifica sul tema della suscettibilità alla disin-formazione. Sebbene sia una problematica insidiosa, poca attenzione è stata data alle variabili psicologiche coinvolte in tale fenomeno, così come non esistono ancora norme editoriali che tutelino la corretta diffusione delle notizie online. Gli Autori, dopo aver definito le molteplici sfaccettature delle notizie false, esplorano le differenze individuali implicate nella corretta o errata accuratezza percepita nelle Fake News e nel comportamento di condivisione delle stesse. In conclusione, premettendo l’analisi degli aspetti criminologico-clinici del fenomeno di interesse, si richiama l’attenzione dei cultori della criminologia per avviare uno studio scientifico diretto alla progettazione di strategie di fronteggiamento considerando autori e vittime di fake news

Providing a nurse-led complex nursing INtervention FOcused on quality of life assessment on advanced cancer patients: The INFO-QoL pilot trial.

PURPOSE Unmet needs for advanced-disease cancer patients are fatigue, pain, and emotional support. Little information is available about the feasibility of interventions focused on patient-reported outcome measurement developed according to the Medical Research Council (MRC) Framework in advanced-disease cancer patients. We aimed to pilot a nurse-led complex intervention focused on QoL assessment in advanced-disease cancer patients. METHODS The INFO-QoL study was based on an exploratory, nonequivalent comparison group, pre-test-post-test design. Study sites received either the INFO-QoL intervention or usual care. Adult advanced-disease cancer patients admitted to hospice inpatient units that gave their informed consent were included in the study. Subjects were 187 patients and their families and 19 healthcare professionals. We evaluated feasibility, acceptability, and patients' outcomes using the Integrated Palliative Care Outcome Scale. RESULTS Nineteen healthcare professionals were included. The mean competence score increased significantly over time (p < 0.001) and the mean usefulness score was high 8.63 (±1.36). In the post-test phase, 54 patients were allocated to the experimental unit and 36 in the comparison unit. Compared to the comparison unit, in the experimental unit anxiety (R2 = 0.07; 95% CI = -0.06; 0.19), family anxiety (R2 = 0.22; 95% CI = -0.03; 0.41), depression (R2 = 0.31; 95% CI = -0.05; 0.56) and sharing feelings (R2 = 0.09; 95% CI = -0.05; 0.23), were improved between pre-test and post-test phase. CONCLUSIONS The INFO-QoL was feasible and potentially improved psychological outcomes. Despite the high attrition rate, the INFO-QoL improved the quality and safety culture for patients in palliative care settings

Natalizumab, Fingolimod and Dimethyl Fumarate Use and Pregnancy-Related Relapse and Disability in Women With Multiple Sclerosis

To investigate pregnancy-related disease activity in a contemporary multiple sclerosis (MS) cohort

To believe or not to believe: Personality, cognitive, and emotional factors involving fake news perceived accuracy

What are the factors that influence individuals' belief in fake news? A structured survey was conducted to examine the impact of cognitive, emotional, and personality factors on the perceived accuracy of fake news. This study utilizes certain facets of the Personality Inventory of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (PID-5-Adult trait) to investigate the phenomenon of fake news. Using actual fake news headlines encountered on Facebook, the study revealed that individuals with high levels of psychoticism, impulsivity, suspiciousness, and low analytical reasoning abilities are more likely to believe fake news. Furthermore, the study found that fear induced by news content significantly influences by impeding rational, factual analysis. These findings suggest that while social media platforms contribute to the dissemination of fake news, individual vulnerabilities also play a crucial role. These findings could be useful for the development of digital literacy programs

PSICOLOGIA ON LINE. ASPETTI CLINICI E MEDICO-LEGALI PSYCHOLOGY ONLINE. CLINICAL AND LEGAL MEDICA ASPECTS

Online Psychology is a relatively recent branch of Psychology, which had a great boost during the COVID-19 pandemic, which deals with studying the relationships between mental health professionals, people and new media and new technologies in general. The use of technological tools to carry out psychological interventions and services for subjects with forms of psychological distress represent a great resource, but not free from risks and problems at a clinical, therapeutic, and also medical and ethical level. The article traces some of the most tense issues relating to online psychology. Adequate clinical training is necessary and indispensable, but also medical examiner, to face the challenges that these new ways of providing psychological services entail for the professional community of psychologists

Gut microbiota diversity before allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation as predictor of mortality in children

The correlation existing between gut microbiota diversity and survival after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) has so far been studied in adults. Pediatric studies question whether this association applies to children likewise. Stool samples from a multicenter cohort of 90 pediatric allo-HSCT recipients were analyzed using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to profile the gut microbiota and estimate diversity with the Shannon index. A global-to-local networking approach was used to characterize the ecological structure of the gut microbiota. Patients were stratified into higher- and lower-diversity groups at two timepoints: pre-transplantation and at neutrophil engraftment. The higher-diversity group prior to transplantation exhibited a higher probability of overall survival (88.9±5.7 standard error [SE] vs 62.7±8.2 [SE]) (p = 0.011) and lower incidence of grade II-IV (20.0±6.0 [SE] vs 44.4±7.4 [SE]) (p = 0.017) and grade III-IV acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD) (2.2±2.2 [SE] vs 20.0±6.0 [SE]) (p = 0.007). No significant difference in relapse-free survival was observed between the two groups (80.0±6.0 [SE] vs 55.4±10.8 [SE]) (p = 0.091). The higher-diversity group was characterized by higher relative abundances of potentially health-related families, such as Ruminococcaceae and Oscillospiraceae. In contrast, the lower-diversity group showed an overabundance of Enterococcaceae and Enterobacteriaceae. Network analysis detected short-chain fatty acid producers such as Blautia, Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, and Bacteroides as keystones in the higher-diversity group. Enterococcus, Escherichia-Shigella and Enterobacter were instead the keystones detected in the lower-diversity group. These results indicate that gut microbiota diversity and composition before transplantation correlate with survival and with the likelihood of developing aGvHD

Longitudinal machine learning modeling of MS patient trajectories improves predictions of disability progression.

Research in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) has recently focused on extracting knowledge from real-world clinical data sources. This type of data is more abundant than data produced during clinical trials and potentially more informative about real-world clinical practice. However, this comes at the cost of less curated and controlled data sets. In this work we aim to predict disability progression by optimally extracting information from longitudinal patient data in the real-world setting, with a special focus on the sporadic sampling problem. We use machine learning methods suited for patient trajectories modeling, such as recurrent neural networks and tensor factorization. A subset of 6682 patients from the MSBase registry is used. We can predict disability progression of patients in a two-year horizon with an ROC-AUC of 0.85, which represents a 32% decrease in the ranking pair error (1-AUC) compared to reference methods using static clinical features. Compared to the models available in the literature, this work uses the most complete patient history for MS disease progression prediction and represents a step forward towards AI-assisted precision medicine in MS

Corrigendum to Longitudinal machine learning modeling of MS patient trajectories improves predictions of disability progression: [Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, Volume 208, (September 2021) 106180].

The authors regret an error in the pre-processing of the dataset that went unnoticed in the extensive code used for pre-processing of the study data. As a result of this error, the last EDSS overall for each patient was included as the last EDSS in the observation period. We corrected the error and repeated all analyses. [...