Objective Euthymia is a transdiagnostic construct characterized by the absence of mood disturbances and the presence of an integration of psychic forces, such as psychological flexibility, ...well-being, resistance to stress. The present study has a cross-sectional design and is aimed at identifying psychological variables associated with euthymia among Italian university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods 951 students (77.5% female, mean age: 24.86 ± 5.62 years) were enrolled. The Euthymia Scale (ES), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21), the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), the Positive Mental Health Scale (PMH), and the Resilience Scale (RS-11) were administered. Spearman correlation analyses and hierarchical regression analysis adjusted for age and sex (independent variables: DASS-21, SWLS, PMH, RS-11 scores; dependent variable: ES scores) were performed. Results Euthymia was negatively correlated with DASS-21 depression (rho = −0.62, p < 0.001), DASS-21 anxiety (rho = −0.41, p < 0.001), DASS-21 distress (rho = −0.55, p < 0.001). Euthymia was positively correlated with SWLS life satisfaction (rho = 0.63, p < 0.001), PMH positive mental health (rho = 0.78, p < 0.001), and RS-11 resilience (rho = 0.72, p < 0.001). Regression model showed that higher euthymia was associated with lower DASS-21 depression and DASS-21 distress scores, and with higher on SWLS life satisfaction, PMH positive mental health and RS-11 resilience (adjusted R2 = 0.73, F = 317.64, p < 0.001) scores. Conclusion Among Italian university students exposed to COVID-19 pandemic, psychotherapeutic interventions aiming to reduce depression, distress and enhancing positive mental health, life satisfaction and resilience may allow the pursuit of euthymia.
Objective The aim of the present cohort study was to investigate migraine patients enrolled at a tertiary care unit to study suffering and pain behaviors and identify potential risk factors for ...migraine. Method An observational cross-sectional study was carried out on patients with chronic migraine (CM), episodic migraine (EM), and healthy subjects (HS). The three groups were matched for age and sex. A comprehensive assessment of migraine disability, pain, psychiatric disorders, psychosomatic syndromes, depressive and anxious symptoms, euthymia, mental pain, psychosocial variables, and pain-proneness was performed. Results Three hundred subjects were enrolled (100 CM, 100 EM, 100 HS). Based on the multiple regression analyses, those presenting higher levels of psychological distress (OR = 1.15, 95%CI 1.03–1.28) and proneness to pain (social impairment: OR = 3.59, 95%CI 1.14.-11.29; depressive symptoms: OR = 3.82, 95%CI 1.74–8.41) were more likely to be CM than HS. Those with higher levels of proneness to pain (social impairment: OR = 4.04, 95%CI 1.60–10.22; depressive symptoms: OR = 2.02, 95%CI 1.26–3.24) were Conclusion Migraine is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with psychosocial manifestations which might contribute to the level of suffering of the individuals. Mental pain resulted to be the variable which most differentiated chronic from episodic migraine individuals.
Objective This study has a cross-sectional design and is aimed at exploring the mediating role of alexithymia in the relationship between temperament and craving in alcoholic bipolar patients. Method ...151 alcoholic bipolar patients (38% females, mean age: 45.69 ± 9.04 years) were enrolled at the Villa San Giuseppe Hospital (Ascoli Piceno, Italy). The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.), the Temperament Evaluation of the Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego scale (TEMPS-A), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and the Typology Craving Questionnaire (CTQ) were administered. Results Difficulty in identifying feelings mediated the association between TEMPS-A anxious temperament and CTQ craving (Indirect effect: 0.42, BCaCI: 0.22–0.69), TEMPS-A cyclothymic temperament and CTQ craving (Indirect effect: 0.55, BCaCI: 0.30–0.87), TEMPS-A irritable temperament and CTQ craving (Indirect effect: 0.45, BCaCI: 0.19–0.80). Difficulty in communicating feelings to others mediated the association between TEMPS-A anxious temperament and CTQ craving (Indirect effect: 0.20, BCaCI: Conclusion Among alcoholic bipolar patients with anxious, cyclothymic, and irritable temperaments, psychological interventions reducing alexithymia may be useful to manage craving.
•In Germany and Italy, social media (SM) are used as Covid-19 information source.•In both countries, SM use (SMU) is positively linked to burden caused by Covid-19.•In Italy, stress mediates the link ...between SMU and burden cross-sectionally.•In Germany, stress mediates the link between SMU and burden longitudinally.•Other Covid-19 information sources are not linked to stress.
The need for “social distancing” to reduce the spread of Covid-19 is accompanied by an increase of social media use (SMU). Many people engage in intensive online activity to find information about the current Covid-19 situation and to interact about it with other users. The present study investigated the extent of SMU as Covid-19 information source and its relationship with stress symptoms and burden caused by the pandemic in Germany and Italy.
Cross-national longitudinal (Germany, N = 501; 3-months period) and cross-sectional (Italy, N = 951) data on Covid-19 information sources, stress symptoms and burden caused by Covid-19 were collected via online surveys.
About 50% of the German sample and about 60% of the Italian sample frequently used SM as Covid-19 information source. Cross-sectional analyses in both countries revealed that SMU is positively associated with stress symptoms and experienced burden. Moreover, stress symptoms mediated the link between SMU and burden. This was also confirmed by longitudinal analyses in Germany (burden assessed three months after SMU and stress symptoms).
The mostly female and relatively young sample composition limits the generalizability of present findings. Only two European countries were investigated.
The present findings reveal a potential negative impact of enhanced SMU on individual mental health state and behavior. Additionally, they emphasize the significance of a conscious and cautious use of SM as information source specifically during the pandemic.
Background This study aimed to identify the clinical variables associated with' psychological well-being in systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients. Methods 124 SSc patients were enrolled at the Careggi ...University Hospital (Florence, Italy). The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview, the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research-Revised Semi-Structured Interview, the World Health Organization-Five Weil-Being Index (WHO-5), the Psychological Weil-Being Questionnaire (PWB), the Mental Pain Questionnaire (MPQ), the Symptom Questionnaire (SQ), the Symptom Checklist-90-R, the Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index, and the Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure (iPRISM) were administered. Subjects were stratified into "low" or "high" psychological well-being (based on WHO-5) with the aim to compare the two groups concerning the above variables. Results Regression model showed that higher well-being was associated with the absence of psychiatric disorders, higher PWB purpose in life, iPRISM feeling peace scores, and with lower iPRISM suffering, iPRISM physical pain, MPQ mental pain, SQ depression, SQ somatization, SCL-90 obsessive-compulsive scores (R2 = 0.58). Conclusions SSc patients might benefit for empowering psychological well-being both reducing suffering and psychological symptoms and increasing purposes in life and peace feelings.
ABSTRACT Introduction This study explored the possible mediating role of emotion dysregulation in the association between perfectionism and eating psychopathology symptoms. Method One hundred ...forty‐two outpatients with eating disorders (EDs) were enrolled. Perfectionism, emotion dysregulation, ED psychopathology, anxious and depressive symptoms were assessed. Correlation, mediation and 95% bias corrected and accelerated (BCa CI) bootstrapped analyses were run. Results Emotion dysregulation was found to mediate the association between concern over mistakes perfectionism and restraint (indirect effect: 0.093, BCa CI: 0.001–0.02, adjusted R 2 = 0.3324, p < 0.001), shape concern (indirect effect: 0.0130, BCa CI: 0.004–0.03, adjusted R 2 = p < 0.001) and weight concern (indirect effect: 0.0142, BCa CI: 0.004–0.03, adjusted R 2 = 0.2986, p < 0.001). Conclusion Among ED outpatients, emotion dysregulation may be involved in the association between concern over mistakes perfectionism and persistence of eating psychopathology symptoms. Emotion dysregulation could be considered as possible therapeutic target to reduce the persistence, and severity, of eating psychopathology symptoms among ED patients with concern over mistakes perfectionism.
Literature suggested that metacognitions are involved in eating problems and may be relevant to the understanding of Binge Eating Disorder (BED). The goal of the current studies was to develop the ...first self‐report instrument on metacognitions about binge eating. In Study 1, a community sample completed the Metacognitions about Binge Eating Questionnaire (MBEQ); an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed. In study 2, a community sample completed the MBEQ and measures assessing severity of binge eating, irrational food beliefs, anxiety, depression, impulsiveness. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed. Concurrent and incremental validity were assessed. In study 3, a clinical sample of participants with a diagnosis of BED completed the MBEQ and other measures. Bivariate correlational analysis and hierarchical linear regression were performed. Participants from the general population and participants with a diagnosis of BED were compared. EFA and CFA supported a two‐factor solution consisting of positive and negative metacognitions about binge eating. Concurrent and incremental validity were acceptable. The metacognitions factors correlated positively with anxiety, depression, irrational food beliefs, impulsiveness in the community sample, and anxiety, irrational food beliefs, impulsiveness in clinical sample. The metacognitions factors contributed to the prediction of BEDs symptoms, in community and clinical samples, over and above age, gender, impulsiveness, anxiety, depression, irrational food beliefs. The MBEQ possesses good psychometric properties and appears a reliable and valid measure of positive and negative metacognitions about binge eating. Metacognitions about binge eating could be a therapeutic target to reduce the severity of binge eating episodes.
Levels of cell-free circulating DNA have been correlated to clinical characteristics and prognosis in patients with cancers of epithelial origin, while there are no data on patients with ...B-lymphoproliferative diseases.
Cell-free DNA levels in the plasma samples of 142 patients with lymphomas 45 with Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), 63 with diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (DLBCL), 24 with follicular, and 10 with mantle cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) at diagnosis and of 41 healthy individuals were determined using a quantitative PCR for the β-globin gene.
Levels of circulating DNA in patients with HL, DLBCL, and mantle cell NHL were significantly higher than in controls (P < 0.01 for all). Increased levels of plasma DNA were associated with advanced stage disease, presence of B-symptoms, elevated lactate dehydrogenase levels, and age >60 years (P = 0.009; <0.0001; <0.0001; 0.04, respectively). In HL, histological signs of necrosis and grade 2 type of nodular sclerosis were associated with increased plasma DNA. Elevated plasma DNA levels were associated with an inferior failure-free survival in patients with HL (P = 0.01) and DLBCL (P = 0.03).
Quantification of circulating DNA by real-time PCR at diagnosis can identify patients with elevated levels that are associated with disease characteristics indicating aggressive disease and poor prognosis.
To stratify the prognosis of patients with programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) ≥ 50% advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (aNSCLC) treated with first-line immunotherapy.
Baseline clinical ...prognostic factors, the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), PD-L1 tumour cell expression level, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and their combination were investigated by a retrospective analysis of 784 patients divided between statistically powered training (n = 201) and validation (n = 583) cohorts. Cut-offs were explored by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and a risk model built with validated independent factors by multivariate analysis.
NLR < 4 was a significant prognostic factor in both cohorts (P < 0.001). It represented 53% of patients in the validation cohort, with 1-year overall survival (OS) of 76.6% versus 44.8% with NLR > 4, in the validation series. The addition of PD-L1 ≥ 80% (21% of patients) or LDH < 252 U/l (25%) to NLR < 4 did not result in better 1-year OS (of 72.6% and 74.1%, respectively, in the validation cohort). Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (PS) of 2 P < 0.001, hazard ratio (HR) 2.04, pretreatment steroids (P < 0.001, HR 1.67) and NLR < 4 (P < 0.001, HR 2.29) resulted in independent prognostic factors. A risk model with these three factors, namely, the lung immuno-oncology prognostic score (LIPS)-3, accurately stratified three OS risk-validated categories of patients: favourable (0 risk factors, 40%, 1-year OS of 78.2% in the whole series), intermediate (1 or 2 risk factors, 54%, 1-year OS 53.8%) and poor (>2 risk factors, 5%, 1-year OS 10.7%) prognosis.
We advocate the use of LIPS-3 as an easy-to-assess and inexpensive adjuvant prognostic tool for patients with PD-L1 ≥ 50% aNSCLC.
•Immunotherapy/chemoimmunotherapy combinations are currently not superior to immunotherapy alone for high PD-L1 aNSCLC.•NLR with a cut-off of 4 was validated as an independent prognostic factor for immunotherapy in high PD-L1 aNSCLC.•The addition of either PD-L1 ≥ 80% or LDH < 252 U/l to NLR < 4 did not result in better prognostic stratification.•The LIPS-3 is a validated 3-class prognostic classification based on the NLR, ECOG PS and pretreatment steroids.•The LIPS-3 is a routinely assessable adjuvant prognostic tool for high PD-L1 aNSCLC patients.
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