Eighteen Months of COVID-19 Pandemic Through the Lenses of Self or Others: A Meta-Analysis on Children and Adolescents’ Mental Health

Background The COVID-19 pandemic can have a serious impact on children and adolescents’ mental health. We focused on studies exploring its traumatic effects on young people in the first 18 months after that the pandemic was declared, distinguishing them also according to the type of informants (self-report and other-report instruments). Objective We applied a meta-analytic approach to examine the prevalence of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and psychological distress among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the moderating role of kind of disorder and/or symptom, type of instrument, and continent. Method We used PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus databases to identify articles on the COVID-19 pandemic, applying the following filters: participants until 20 years of age, peer-review, English as publication language. Inclusion required investigating the occurrence of disorders and/or symptoms during the first 18 months of the pandemic. The search identified 26 publications. Results The meta-analysis revealed that the pooled prevalence of psychological disorders and/or symptoms for children and adolescents, who were not affected by mental health disturbances before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, was .20, 95% CI [.16, .23]. Moreover, we found a moderating role of type of instrument: occurrence was higher for self-report compared to other-report instruments. Conclusions The study presented an analysis of the psychological consequences for children and adolescents of the exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic, soliciting further research to identify factors underlying resilience. Notwithstanding limitations such as the small number of eligible articles and the fact that we did not examine the role of further characteristics of the studies (such as participants’ age or design), this meta-analysis is a first step for future research documenting the impact of such an unexpected and devastating disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic

Development and evaluation of psychoeducational resources for adult carers to emotionally support young people impacted by wars: A community case study

Wars and armed conflicts have a devastating impact at the economic, social, and individual level. Millions of children and adolescents are forced to bear their disastrous consequences, also in terms of mental health. Their effects are even more complicated when intertwined with those of other disasters such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. To help them face such adverse events, lay adults can be supported by psychoeducational interventions involving simple tools to assist children and adolescents emotionally. Hence, we planned and implemented two public communication campaigns concerning wars to support adult carers such as parents, teachers, educators, psychologists, first responders, and others interested in young people’s wellbeing. We developed psychoeducational materials to help children and adolescents cope with negative emotions related to indirect and direct exposure to wars. This study had the objective to identify the content for two pamphlets, testing their comprehensibility, usability, and utility, and monitoring their dissemination. First, based on classifications of coping strategies and on a previous campaign about COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to include in the psychoeducational materials basic information on news about wars and common reactions to wars, respectively; on emotions that might be experienced; and on coping strategies for dealing with negative emotions. For the first pamphlet, we identified the strategies involving 141 adults. They completed an online survey with openended questions concerning ways to help children and adolescents cope with negative emotions associated with the Russia-Ukraine war. For the second pamphlet, we selected the contents based on Psychological First Aid manuals. Through content analyses, we chose 24 strategies. Second, data gathered with 108 adults who had consulted the psychoeducational materials supported their comprehensibility, usability, and utility. Third, we monitored the visibility of the campaigns after the release of the pamphlets, using Google Analytics™ data from the HEMOT® website through which we disseminated them. To conclude, our findings supported the comprehensibility, the usability, and the utility of the two pamphlets, to be disseminated as psychoeducational materials in the early phase of a disaster

Development and Validation of the Robust - Pandemic Coping Scale (R-PCS)

The psychological consequences of epidemics/pandemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, include an increase in psychopathological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and stress, and negative emotions, such as fear. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how people cope with the pandemic. Coping is a multi-component process, helping to diminish the traumatic impact of stressful events in a variety of ways. We studied how university students coped with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, by developing the Robust - Pandemic Coping Scale (R-PCS), a new scale for measuring coping strategies related to epidemics/pandemics. The scale is based on a classification of coping strategies referred to the needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. To create a robust scale, such that the item values would be independent of the sample used for developing it, we employed Rasch modeling. We used a sample of 2,987 Italian university students who participated in an online survey including the R-PCS and the Power to Live with Disasters Questionnaire (PLDQ), during March 2020. First, we applied a dual approach combining exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which supported the goodness of a 4-factor model (i.e., Despair, Adjustment, Proactivity, and Aversion) for the R-PCS, invariant across gender and age of respondents (younger or as old as 23 years, older than 23 years). We then transformed the raw scores of the R-PCS into interval logit scale scores applying the Rasch model. Second, our findings supported the discriminant validity and the criterion validity of the R-PCS, examining the correlations with the PLDQ. They also confirmed its predictive validity: the R-PCS scores were related to 2-month-later enjoyment and anger, indicating that Adjustment and Proactivity were adaptive while Despair and Aversion were maladaptive. Third, our study revealed gender and age differences: the scores were higher for Despair, Adjustment, and Proactivity for females; for Aversion for males; and for Proactivity for students older than 23 years. The study suffers from limitations related to social desirability, gender imbalance, and self-selection effects in the recruitment

Higher education students’ achievement emotions and their antecedents in e-learning amid COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-country survey

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a wide range of negative consequences for higher education students. We explored the generalizability of the control-value theory of achievement emotions for e-learning, focusing on their antecedents. We involved 17019 higher education students from 13 countries, who completed an online survey during the first wave of the pandemic. A structural equation model revealed that proximal antecedents (e-learning self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy) mediated the relation between environmental antecedents (cognitive and motivational quality of the task) and positive and negative achievement emotions, with some exceptions. The model was invariant across country, area of study, and gender. The rates of achievement emotions varied according to these same factors. Beyond their theoretical relevance, these findings could be the basis for policy recommendations to support stakeholders in coping with the challenges of e-learning and the current and future sequelae of the pandemic.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Tecnologia e programmi di prevenzione

Lo sviluppo digitale che contraddistingue la nostra epoca ha influenzato notevolmente anche i contesti educativi. I bambini e gli adolescenti di oggi sono caratterizzati da un nuovo modo di elaborare le informazioni e di apprendere. A fronte di ciò, la sfida è quella di affiancare alla didattica tradizionale metodologie capaci di integrare dinamiche ludiche e dispositivi tecnologici. Gli applicativi software e hardware possono essere sfruttati per perseguire svariati obiettivi di apprendimento, tra cui l’incremento della competenza emotiva e delle conoscenze utili alla preparazione ai disastri naturali. Considerando quest’ultimo ambito, esistono diversi programmi che fanno uso di realtà virtuale e serious game. In riferimento al terremoto, sono presenti alcune mobile app (adatte a diverse fasce di età) che mirano ad aumentare le conoscenze principalmente sui comportamenti di sicurezza. Un esempio di app sulla preparazione comportamentale e sulla prevenzione emotiva in caso di terremoto è HEMOT®, una web application sviluppata all’interno del progetto PrEmT

Big Five personality traits and coping strategies of Italian university students during the COVID-19 pandemic first wave

IntroductionLittle is known about the role personality traits may have played for university students in diminishing and compensating for the negative impact of COVID-19 in its early phases, promoting adaptive coping. University students represent a population which was consistently obliged to follow social distance rules due to the early shift of many organizations from face-to-face to online learning. Therefore, it is worth exploring whether the Big Five traits acted as risk or protective factors after the outbreak of a disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic for Italian university students.MethodsWe involved a sample of 2,995 university students who completed an online survey in March 2020. We measured the Big Five personality traits through the Big Five Inventory-2-XS and their coping strategies through the Robust—Pandemic Coping Scale. The latter assessed four COVID-19-related coping dimensions, namely Despair (e.g., including helplessness and feeling lack of control), Aversion (e.g., referring to oppositive strategies), Proactivity (e.g., comprising problem solving and information seeking), and Adjustment (e.g., concerning reappraisal and assertiveness).ResultsPreliminarily, two Linear Mixed Models indicated that university students had higher scores in Conscientiousness, followed by Open-Mindedness, and then Agreeableness. These three traits were, in turn, higher than Extraversion and Negative Emotionality, which did not differ among them. Concerning coping, university students reacted more frequently utilizing adaptive strategies (with Proactivity used more frequently than Adjustment) rather than maladaptive strategies (with Despair higher than Aversion). A Path Analysis examining the relations between the Big Five traits and the four coping dimensions showed that Negative Emotionality can be considered as a risk factor, and that Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Open-Mindedness can be conceptualized as protective factors. More interestingly, we found that Extraversion entailed both a risk and a protective role for Italian university students after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.DiscussionNotwithstanding limitations, these findings can be the basis for developing disaster preparation and prevention actions, aiming at promoting students’ positive coping towards current and future disasters

Open-ended questions in organizational surveys: some considerations from a Safety Climate research.

Qualitative research has received a growing attention during the last few years. In particular, mixed methodologies have arisen and a growing number of publications features them. Thus, investigating whether using both closed and open-ended questions in organizational surveys is worth it, is an emerging issue. Our contribution will add some new information on a socially constructed phenomenon in the workplace: safety climate, which will be helpful to both academics and practitioners. This study aims to investigate whether open-ended questions could add a valuable information in addition to closed questions in a safety climate survey conducted in Italy (N=1852), using a multilevel assessment instrument for Safety Climate, which separately considers supervisor and co-workers as climate\u2019s agents. Results confirmed that negative comments are more frequent than neutral or positive ones. Negative comments were also longer than positive ones in the subscale concerning co-workers and not in the supervisor\u2019s subscale. Third, a positive correlation between tone and safety climate level was found. Finally, workers who made comments perceived a lower level of safety climate compared with workers who did not make any comment. These results are discussed considering that open-ended and close-ended questions are based on different cognitive processes. Therefore, going deeper into the evaluation and judgement biases (i.e. cognitive biases) which have a role when people are giving a free comment is necessary

PANDHEMOT: AN EVIDENCE-BASED TRAINING TO INCREASE CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS’ KNOWLEDGE ON PANDEMICS AND EMOTIONS

Preventing the negative effects of pandemics on children and adolescents’ mental health is pivotal. This can be done promoting their emotional competence, i.e., the ability to express, understand, and regulate emotions (Denham, 1998). Therefore, we tested the PandHEMOT (Pandemics – Helmet for EMOTions) training, aimed at increasing children and adolescents’ knowledge on pandemics, emotions, and emotion regulation strategies. The sample involved 147 third (Mage = 8.35, SD = 0.28) and seventh-graders (Mage = 12.40, SD = 0.30), divided into an experimental and a control group. Students from the experimental group participated to a 3-unit training using the PandHEMOT app with tablets and headphones. All the students filled in questionnaires about their knowledge in pre and post-training phases. Through Generalized/Linear Mixed Models, we found significant Group x Phase interactions. The findings indicated that participating to the training increased knowledge on: pandemics, protective measures, facial expression, emotional lexicon, and emotion regulation strategies. Moreover, wellbeing did not decrease after the training. This study supported the efficacy of the PandHEMOT training in fostering children and adolescents’ resilience, following the evidence- based research standards