Dellagiulia A, Lionetti F, Fasolo M, Verderame C, Sperati A, Alessandri G. Early impact of COVID-19 lockdown on children’s sleep: a 4-week longitudinal study.
J Clin Sleep Med
. 2020;16(9):1639–1640.
This study investigated the effectiveness of a newly integrated version of an intervention targeting adoptive mothers' positive parenting for promoting children's emotional availability, by testing ...the moderating role of both two maternal genetic polymorphisms (i.e., 5HTTLPR and DRD4-VNTR) and emotional availability-EA on intervention outcomes. Mothers with their children (
= 80;
= 42.73 years,
= 3.79;
= 33.18 months,
= 16.83 months) participated in a RCT testing the Video-Feedback Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline-VIPP-FC/A effectiveness. Mixed effects regression models showed a significant improvement in mother-child EA for the VIPP-intervention vs. the dummy intervention condition, with a moderating role of maternal EA on children's outcomes. No significant moderating effect was found for the two genetic polymorphisms inquired. Children's and mother's outcomes obtained are discussed.
As captured by the individual trait of Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS), highly sensitive children perceive, process, and responds more strongly to stimuli. This increased sensitivity may make ...more demanding the process of regulating and managing emotions. Yet, developmental psychology literature also showed that other variables, as those related to the rearing environment, are likely to contribute to the process of regulating emotions. With the current contribution, we aim to bridge two lines of research, that of attachment studies and that of SPS, by investigating the additive and interactive contribution of SPS and internal working models of attachment representations on emotion regulation competencies in school-aged children.
Participants were
= 118 Italian children (mean age: 6.5, SD = 0.58 years, and 51.8% female) with their mothers. Children's positive attachment representations were rated observationally through the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task procedure during an individual session at school. Mothers reported on children SPS trait and emotion regulation competencies completing the Highly Sensitive Child Scale-parent report and the Emotion Regulation Checklist. We performed and compared a series of main and interaction effect models.
SPS was not directly associated with emotion regulation but it was significantly associated with positive attachment representations in predicting emotion regulation. Highly sensitive children showed poorer emotion regulation when the internalized representations were low in maternal warmth and responsiveness. When driven by sensitive and empathic attachment representation, highly sensitive children showed better emotion regulation than less-sensitive peers, suggesting a for better and for worse effect.
Highly sensitive children are not only more vulnerable to adversities but also show better emotion regulation competencies when supported by positive internal working models of attachment relationships. Overall, findings shed light on the link between SPS and attachment and suggest that working for promoting secure attachment relationships in parent-child dyads may promote better emotion regulation competences, particularly in highly sensitive children.
IntroductionGlobally, around 10% of children are born preterm and are more at risk of negative developmental outcomes. However, empirical evidences and theoretical reasoning also suggest that ...premature birth can be a susceptibility factor, increasing sensitivity to the environment for better and for worse. Because available findings are controversial, with the current scoping review we will explore if, based on the available literature, preterm birth can be seen as an environmental sensitivity (ES) factor. In doing so, we will consider a series of moderating variables, including the level of prematurity, the type of environment and the outcome investigated. Methodological aspects, as the type of measures used and study design, will be considered.Methods and analysisThe scoping review will be conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute Methodology guidelines. The report will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. We will perform the search between 15 January 2022 and 1 February 2022. Data will be chartered by independent reviewers.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval is not required, as primary data will not be collected. This scoping review will be the first to explore whether prematurity is associated with an increased ES. This review can have important implications for tailoring prevention and intervention programmes. Results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Research about the impact of war and displacement experiences on the mental health of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) has recently grown. However, a limited number of studies focus on minorities. ...The objective of the present preliminary study was to estimate the prevalence of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSSs) among IDPs who live outside camps and belong to the Christian minority in Iraq, and to identify possible predictors.
Overall, 108 internally displaced Christians (54 married couples) participated in the study. Traumatic events and PTSSs were assessed using the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire. Multivariable linear regression models were used to investigate possible predictors of PTSSs. Multivariable logistic regression models have been developed to estimate the odds of presenting PTSSs.
Results demonstrated high rates of trauma exposure, with all participants having experienced at least three traumatic events. The estimated prevalence of PTSSs was 20.3%. A low economic status, the number of traumatic events, and a second experience of displacement were associated with increased PTSSs. Five traumatic events were identified as the main predictors of PTSSs.
Findings from the current preliminary study indicated the impact of war-related traumatic events on IDPs' mental health and the negative effects of post-displacement experiences. These findings may have important implications for setting up psychosocial interventions, as well as for further promoting physical and mental health services among these populations.
Lionetti F, Fasolo M, Dellagiulia A. On the role of moderator on children’s sleep health in response to COVID-19.
J Clin Sleep Med
. 2021;17(2):353–354.
The interplay of parenting and environmental sensitivity on children's behavioral adjustment during, and immediately after, the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions was investigated in two longitudinal ...studies involving Italian preschoolers (Study 1,
= 72; 43% girls,
= 3.82(1.38)) and primary school children (Study 2,
= 94; 55% girls,
= 9.08(0.56)). Data were collected before and during the first-wave lockdown (Studies 1 and 2) and one month later (Study 1). Parental stress and parent-child closeness were measured. Markers of environmental sensitivity in children were temperamental fearfulness and Sensory Processing Sensitivity. Results showed little change in externalizing and internalizing behaviors over time, but differences emerged when considering parenting and children's environmental sensitivity. In preschoolers, greater parenting stress was related to a stronger increase in internalizing and externalizing behaviors, with children high in fearful temperament showing a more marked decrease in externalizing behaviors when parenting stress was low. In school-aged children, parent-child closeness emerged as a protective factor for internalizing and externalizing behaviors during COVID-19, with children high in Sensory Processing Sensitivity showing a marked decrease in internalizing behaviors when closeness was high. Implications for developmental theory and practice in times of pandemic are discussed.
By reference to a sample of 173 emerging adult seminarians in South Italy, this study evaluates the influence of attachment to one’s parents and peers on identity development and well-being in ...seminarians. The statistical analysis (PLS-PM) reports that secure attachment to one’s mother and secure attachment to a peer are positively associated with identity and well-being. No such association is found with attachment to one’s father. Attachment to one’s mother loses its association with identity during the shift from the freshmen to the senior group and is replaced by attachment with one’s peers. Both attachment relationships lose their associations with well-being between these groups. Our results demonstrate that attachment to one’s peers becomes the most relevant relationship, thus supporting this specific form of relationship among seminarians.
Existing research concerning the development of generativity, the capacity to provide care and guidance to future generations, has primarily focused on the role of sociodemographic variables. ...However, one important feature that might be of importance for the study of generativity is insecure romantic attachment, given its influence on how people establish relationships with others. Still, the role of the two dimensions of insecure romantic attachment (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) on the most studied aspects of generativity (i.e., generative concern and generative acts) remains largely underexplored. Therefore, the present study investigates what contributes to generativity by exploring the role of sociodemographic features (i.e., age, gender, having children, years of education) and above all the two dimensions of insecure romantic attachment on generative concern and acts. A sample of 427 adults (age range: 25–65 years old) completed an online survey including romantic attachment and generativity measures. Afterwards, correlational and regression analyses were conducted to explore the data. Results showed that years of education positively predicted generative concern, whereas both anxiety and avoidance negatively predicted it. Yet, no sociodemographic feature nor dimension of insecure romantic attachment predicted generative acts. Thus, insecure romantic attachment could be a useful key to understanding generative concern.
For evaluating monitoring and parent-adolescent communication, a set of scales addressing parental knowledge, control and solicitation, and adolescent disclosure was proposed by Kerr and Stattin ...(2000). Although these scales have been widely disseminated, their psychometric proprieties have often been found to be unsatisfactory, raising questions about their validity. The current study examines whether their poor psychometric properties, which are mainly attributed to the relatively poor conceptual quality of the items, could have been caused by the use of less-than-optimal analytical estimation methods. A cross-validation approach is used on a sample of 1071 adolescents. Maximum likelihood (ML) is compared with the diagonal weighted least squares (DWLS) method, which is suitable for Likert scales. The results of the DWLS approach lead to a more optimal fit than that obtained using ML estimation. The DWLS methodology may represent a useful option for researchers using these scales because it corrects for their unreliability.
PDF
