1,244 research outputs found
Personalizing psychological treatment along the IBD journey: From diagnosis to surgery
No full textPersonalized medicine is becoming a widespread effort to provide the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. However, it lacks of consideration for nonmedical factors, such as patient preferences and psychosocial factors, that should not be avoided. The present study summarizes the psychosocial difficulties experienced by patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) during different phases of the disease in order to identify methods to assess psychosocial risk factors and personalize treatment strategies. To reach this goal, the quantitative literature is matched with the patients' perspective, offering a broad overview of psychosocial risk factors that IBD patients experience. Quantitative results offer strong evidences for specific psychosocial risk factors in IBD and for weak results of psychosocial interventions, but show a lack of individually tailored researches, instruments and interventions, increasing the distance between the research findings and clinical practice. At the same time, qualitative findings show important, though veiled information uncovered by the quantitative research (e.g., identity recovery, fight for control, sexual concerns), which may be used as a starting point for further explorations. The present study suggests a need to adopt individualized therapeutic approach and deliver psychological therapies while taking into account patients' experiences and preferences
Editorial: Patient-Centered Infertility Care: Current Research and Future Perspectives on Psychosocial, Relational, and Communication Aspects
No full textThe engagement in healthy ageing promotion scale: Development and validation
No full textPurpose of the study: This article reports the development and Italian validation of a new self-report instrument (The Engagement in Healthy Ageing Promotion Scale) that assesses older people engagement in healthy ageing promotion and is grounded on an ecological operational definition of this phenomenon. Methods: 14 items were developed basing on a previously conducted qualitative study exploring older adults’ experiences and meanings of engagement in health promotion. Analyses were conducted on an Italian sample of 540 adults aged 60 years and older, randomly split into an exploratory (n = 308) and a confirmatory (n = 232) group. A final scale of 8 items was validated with confirmatory factor analyses. Concurrent and criterion validity of the final items were evaluated with measures of patient activation, readiness to change lifestyle and wellbeing. Results: Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the one-factor structure of the eightitems scale, with a variance explained of 44% and an eigenvalue equal to 3.5. The fit values of the final model indicated a good model fit. Internal consistency of the scale was good, with a Cronbach’s Alpha equal to 0.81. Finally, concurrent and criterion validity revealed significant relationships with the patient activation construct (r = .401; p = .000), with the readiness to change lifestyle (r = .211; p = .000), and with older people’s wellbeing (r = .205; p = .000). Implications: The developed instrument can represent a useful tool to estimate the extent to which older citizens are engaged in health promotion activities, as well as to develop and evaluate interventions aimed to improve wellbeing and preventive behaviours of older citizens
Quality of life in active surveillance and the associations with decision-making-a literature review
No full textSeveral studies have been conducted on the quality of life (QoL) in men with low risk prostate cancer (PCa) who choose active surveillance (AS). While recent reviews have shown a lack of consistency among the available QoL-studies, a few key points have been identified, including decision-making (DM)- related issues and their potential effect on QoL. The importance of this theme has also been recently highlighted by the international task force of the European School of Oncology. However, to our knowledge, there are no studies that have specifically marshalled scientific knowledge on the association between DM and QoL among men with low-risk PCa undergoing AS. We performed a literature review to fill this gap, taking a systematic approach to retrieving and selecting articles that included both DM and QoL measures. Among the 272 articles retrieved, we selected nine observational, quantitative articles with both DM and QoL measures. The most considered DM aspects within these studies were decisional conflict and preference for the patient's role in the DM process, as well as health-related QoL aspects. The studies included 42 assessments of the relationship between an empirical measure of DM and an empirical measure of QoL. Among these assessments, 23 (55%) were both positive and significant. They mostly concerned the relationship between patient-related (decisional self-efficacy, decisional control and knowledge) and external (presence of social support, collaborative role within the DM process, and influence of different physicians) DM aspects, as well as the QoL after choice. The findings of these studies revealed key challenges to research and clinical practice related to DM and QoL in AS. These include adopting a person-centred perspective where clinicians, caregivers and their interactions are also included in evaluations and where the psychosocial existential experience of individuals within the DM and AS journey is considered. Much more attention needs to be paid to the DM process after diagnosis, as well as to all the other moments where patients may have to or want to review their decision. Healthcare professionals play a key role in enabling men to make informed decisions and to take care of their health and well-being during AS. There is still work that needs to be done in training healthcare professionals from different disciplines to work together in a model of shared DM and AS tailored to the needs of low-risk PCa patients and their family members
Technologies for participatory wellbeing: A consumer health analysis of the ongoing scientific debate
No full textThe participatory health revolution is shaping consumers’ health behaviors that are increasingly influence by people’s desire to play an active role in promoting a positive life functioning. Technologies are addressing the emerging needs of the participatory health, as they favor a proactive users’ attitude. This chapter describes the results of a software-assisted quali-quantitative study aimed at exploring the scientific debate about technological interventions for wellbeing in the era of participatory health. Based on the study’s results, technologies for wellbeing in the participatory health era may be clustered depending on the “context of delivery,” on their degree of personalization,” and on their inner “conceptualization of positive interventions”. According to a consumer health engagement perspective, those technologies are not mutually exclusive but can coexist based on the specific wellness needs and health engagement expectations of their users
Lo psicodramma in pazienti oncologici
No full textAmong the psychotherapeutic contexts, the group setting can be very helpful to treat the emotional distress secondary to cancer. The psychodrama psychotherapy may assume a crucial role due to its methodological structure aimed at fostering affective expression, mutual support and identification, adaptive coping strategies, by adopting active methods in which body is firstly involved. This study aimed to explore the subjective experience of cancer patients taking part in a psychodrama psychotherapy group at San Paolo Hospital (Milan). An interpretative-phenomenological approach (IPA) was adopted to deepen the experience of patients participating in psychodrama group sessions and its value in improving their clinical an psychological life developing psychotherapeutic programs using a similar approach seems to represent a clinical need that must be considered as a specific component within cancer healthcare pathways
Psychological assessment as an intervention with couples: Single case application of collaborative techniques in clinical practice
No full textPsychological assessment tools yield valid, reliable, and useful data for clinical psychologists. Nonetheless, clients often lack appreciation of their utility to understand and cope with their daily life challenges. Collaborative/Therapeutic Assessment (C/TA) models have shown that assessment results might be used as brief therapeutic interventions through collaboratively sharing testing data with clients. In this article, we focused on two collaborative techniques, namely intervention sessions and summary sessions, as potentially able to increase assessment utility for clients, providing them with life-changing, experiencegrounded feedback based on assessment results. The application of these techniques to a clinical case with a couple suggested that both techniques might be beneficially applied to enhance clients' empathy and compassion, to promote new insights about life challenges, and to sustain the development of new narratives and life meanings. C/TA techniques appear to be effective brief therapeutic interventions and their application in everyday assessment practice may be warranted
HYPOGENE SPELEOGENESIS AND CO2: SUGGESTIONS FROM KARST OF ITALY
No full textThe carbon dioxide produced in the soil and dissolved in the percolation water is considered as the main agent for karstification in the carbonate rocks. Superficial morphologies and underground caves are product of the corrosion of the limestone, while carbonate speleothems is the other end member of the process.
Hypogene speleogenesis driven by deep seated fluids is the cave formation processes for the main karst systems in the Apennines of Italy. Hydrogen sulfide and endogenic carbon dioxide are the main agents for underground karst corrosion and the soil carbon dioxide plays a secondary rule. The limestone corrosion driven by hydrogen sulfide produces gypsum deposits in caves that could be assumed as the indicator of the hypogene speleogenesis. The action of endogenic carbon dioxide in the cave formation, especially if it operates at lower temperature, is not easy to detect and the resulting cave morphology is not helpful to recognize the cave formation process.
The main sources of carbon dioxide in the underground karst system in the Apennines of Italy can be related to different processes driven by the endogenic fluids emissions. The crustal regional degassing seems to be the prevalent source for carbon dioxide in the karst massifs with the main release in the groundwater. Hydrogen sulfide and methane oxidation, possibly mediated by bacteria activity, are other sources in the buried Cenozoic sediments. Releasing of carbon dioxide along the faults and in the fractures occurring in the carbonate rocks is an important source, especially in the seismically active area. Finally, thermogenic reactions with carbonate rocks are well known as one of the main production mechanism of carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere.
Data from carbon dioxide monitoring in several caves show a relevant contribution of the endogenic carbon dioxide (about 75 %) in the karst system which drives the speleogenesis reactions and shapes the underground morphologies
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