Alexithymia. a facet of uncontrolled hypertension

Introduction: Proper control of blood pressure reduces the risk of developing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular complications in hypertensive people. However, this control remains mostly unsatisfactory. Although alexithymia has been associated with essential hypertension, no study has analysed the relationship between alexithymia and blood pressure control in drug-treated hypertension. This research aimed to analyse the presence and the characteristics of this relationship, considering both the pharmacological treatment and the achievement of adequate maintenance of blood pressure in a physiological range. Method: One thousand two hundred and forty-one people participated in the study. Eight hundred and ten were hypertensive patients, and four hundred and thirty-one were normotensive people. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 was used to assess alexithymia. Results: Results show that hypertensive people are more alexithymic than normotensive people. According to the presence of pharmacological treatment, treated hypertensive patients are more alexithymic than normotensive and not treated hypertensive patients. Considering the blood pressure control associated with the drug-therapy, people with uncontrolled hypertension are more alexithymic than normotensive and untreated hypertensive people. Conclusions: These findings confirm a relationship between alexithymia and essential arterial hypertension, but they also highlight that alexithymia appears to be associated with higher severity of hypertension. Alexithymia could be a facet of uncontrolled hypertension

Tree-oriented silviculture for growing valuable broadleaved tree species in Turkey oak coppices

Valuable broadleaved tree species can play an important role in mixed-forest management; in these forests, silviculture may play an important role in getting high value timber. This paper illustrates a tree-oriented silviculture approach with an application in a Turkey oak coppice stand in Central Italy. This silvicultural approach has been developed in the last decades in France, Germany, Switzerland. The rationale behind the tree-oriented approach is to select a number of target sporadic tree species with valuable timber and to support their growth through repeated thinning from above. We tested the effectiveness of this silviculture approach as an alternative to customary coppice management in Italy, which is traditionally focused on the dominant tree species and does not consider valuable broadleaved tree species. The two silviculture approaches (tree-oriented and customary coppicing) were compared through a financial evaluation of the economic convenience of the two alternatives in a Turkey oak coppice stand in Central Ital

On the complementarity of pulsar timing and space laser interferometry for the individual detection of supermassive black hole binaries

Gravitational waves coming from Super Massive Black Hole Binaries (SMBHBs) are targeted by both Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) and Space Laser Interferometry (SLI). The possibility of a single SMBHB being tracked first by PTA, through inspiral, and later by SLI, up to merger and ring down, has been previously suggested. Although the bounding parameters are drawn by the current PTA or the upcoming Square Kilometer Array (SKA), and by the New Gravitational Observatory (NGO), derived from the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), this paper also addresses sequential detection beyond specific project constraints. We consider PTA-SKA, which is sensitive from 10^(-9) to p x 10^(-7) Hz (p=4, 8), and SLI, which operates from s x 10^(-5) up to 1 Hz (s = 1, 3). A SMBHB in the range 2x 10^(8) - 2 x 10^(9) solar masses (the masses are normalised to a (1+z) factor, the red shift lying between z = 0.2 and z=1.5) moves from the PTA-SKA to the SLI band over a period ranging from two months to fifty years. By combining three Super Massive Black Hole (SMBH)-host relations with three accretion prescriptions, nine astrophysical scenarios are formed. They are then related to three levels of pulsar timing residuals (50, 5, 1 ns), generating twenty-seven cases. For residuals of 1 ns, sequential detection probability will never be better than 4.7 x 10^(-4) y^(-2) or 3.3 x 10^(-6) y^(-2) (per year to merger and per year of survey), according to the best and worst astrophysical scenarios, respectively; put differently this means one sequential detection every 46 or 550 years for an equivalent maximum time to merger and duration of the survey. The chances of sequential detection are further reduced by increasing values of the s parameter (they vanish for s = 10) and of the SLI noise, and by decreasing values of the remnant spin. REST OF THE ABSTRACT IN THE PDF FILE.Comment: To appear in the Astrophysical Journa

A real opportunity to modify cardiovascular risk through primary care and prevention: A pilot study

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) represent a major threat to health and primary prevention outstands as the most effective instrument to face this issue, addressing multiple risk factors at a time and influencing behavioral patterns. Community nurses have been involved in many interdisciplinary prevention activities, resulting in effective control of CV risk factors. We conducted a pilot study aiming at describing the impact on the CV risk profile of an 18-month interdisciplinary intervention on lifestyle habits. From September 2018 to May 2020, four general practitioners (GPs) working in the Roman neighborhood of Torresina recruited patients having a cardiovascular risk score (CRS) equal to or higher than 3% and lower than 20%; those patients were included in a nutritional, physical, and psychological counseling program. Assessments of patients' health status were led at baseline, 6, 12, and 18 months by a nutritionist, a physiotherapist, a psychologist, their GPs, and a community nurse. The CRS was estimated at every examination, based on the Italian Progetto Cuore algorithm. A total of 76 patients were included (mean age of 54.6 years; 33 men and 43 women). Mean CRS showed a significant reduction between baseline and 12 months (from 4.9 to 3.8); both total cholesterol and systolic blood pressure (SBP) significantly decreased at 6 months of follow-up (respectively, from 211.1 to 192 and from 133.1 to 123.1). Nonetheless, the reduction was later maintained only for SBP. However, during the last 6 months of the intervention, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, thus, it is not possible to know how much the results achieved at 18 months were influenced by the restrictive measures introduced by the Italian government. When stratifying according to the presence of hypertension/diabetes and physical activity, no differences in the CRS could be highlighted between the two groups. Our pilot study proved that an interdisciplinary counseling intervention program can improve CV risk profile and could be further spread to people that, according to their CRS, would benefit more from changes in lifestyles

Economic performance and well being in call center operators

Introduction. Many studies highlight that workers showing high well-being prove high job performance, but it is unknown whether economic performance affects psychological well-being. This study is aimed to analyze the relationships between economic performance and well-being in call center operators. Method. Forty-nine telephone operators, engaged in the sale of credit cards, were required to fill in questionnaires assessing the following dimensions: Well-being, Alexithymia, Coping, Psychopathological symptoms, and Self-declared Economic performance. Results. Results show that workers with low Economic performance have moderate levels of Self-Acceptance and Positive Interpersonal Relationships and high levels of Psychopathological Symptoms. Conclusions. Though these results are preliminary, given the limited number of participants, they indicate that a low economic performance is associated with a reduced psychological well-being of operators, which is reflected in poor self-acceptance, in lower positive interpersonal relationships, in the presence of distress and psychological symptoms

Problem solving style questionnaire: un contributo italiano

E’ noto (1) che lo stato di benessere di un individuo può essere influenzato dalle abilità e dallo stile di problem solving ( PS), da cui deriva l’importanza di avere uno strumento che consenta di valutarlo. Il Problem Solving Style Questionnaire (PSSQ) (2) è un questionario composto da 14 item, distinti in due sottoscale, che, basati sul modello di apprendimento circolare di Kolb (3), vanno a valutare l’atteggiamento nei confronti di un problema secondo due dimensioni bipolari: una tendente alla sperimentazione attiva e l’altra di osservazione riflessiva/astratta. Il questionario è stato da noi tradotto, cercando di conciliare la traduzione indipendente di quattro persone, di cui una di lingua madre inglese. La versione italiana non presenta una validazione, tuttavia, abbiamo eseguito un’analisi fattoriale preliminare per valutare se ci fosse una corrispondenza con il test originale. Abbiamo somministrato la versione italiana a 271 soggetti di cui 162 donne (età 47,57±9,2; scolarità 14,33 ±2,9) e 109 uomini (età 48,38 ±11,2; scolarità 14,75±4,02 ) dipendenti pubblici. Lo scree-test suggerisce la presenza di due fattori e la rotazione ortogonale degli assi (metodo Varimax), conferma una struttura bi-fattoriale e indica che al fattore 1 contribuiscono gli item 1, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 e al fattore 2 gli item 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14 . La versione italiana dello strumento, potrebbe risultare potenzialmente utile in tutti gli ambiti in cui si voglia esaminare lo stile dei soggetti nell’affrontare determinati compiti. Data la sua brevità di somministrazione, il PSSQ, inoltre, presenta il vantaggio di poter essere agevolmente somministrato unitamente ad altri test

Circadian typology and hypertension

Several studies investigated the relationship between circadian typology (CT) and biological parameters variations, but no study evaluated whether changes in Blood Pressure (BP), recorded by an ambulatory BP monitoring on 24-hours (BP-24h), can be affected by subject’s CT. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether people with different chronotypes, identified by using subjective measures, show different patterns of cardiovascular responses in relation to wakefulness and sleep states. 215 subjects (M/F 108/107; mean age 49.7) underwent to a BP-24h and filled in the Morning and Evening Questionnaire (MEQ), for evaluating CT. Results showed a CT by Gender interaction on Systolic BP (during 24h:p<.01, wake:p<.03, sleep:p<.01), indicating that Evening-type Men have higher BP levels as respect to Evening-type Women, Intermediate and Morning-type Men. CT was not related to BP differences during Wake and Sleep. These results suggest that evening-type men are more exposed to the risk of cardiovascular diseases