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I test che lo psicologo deve conoscere
No full textSviluppato all’inizio del XX secolo dallo psichiatra svizzero Herman Rorschach (1884-1922), il Rorschach Inkblot Method è senz’altro uno dei test psicologici più noti e utilizzati in ambito clinico (Searles, 2017). Macchie d’inchiostro a fini “diagnostici” erano già usate a fine ‘800 ma a Rorschach (che pubblica il test nel 1921) – come notava Anzieu (1960) – va riconosciuta l’originalità di aver trasformato l’uso delle macchie d’inchiostro in test di personalità e non più di immaginazione. Rispetto agli autori che lo avevano preceduto, non era il contenuto delle associazioni dei soggetti che contava ma l’approccio percettivo al compito. Per complesse vicende e alterne fortune, il test si diffuse molto più tardi nel secondo ‘900 e si dovette aspettare il 1942 per la prima traduzione in inglese (Exner, 1969), il 1951 per il primo manuale europeo scritto (Bohm, 1951) e il 1981 per la traduzione italiana. Nel corso del ‘900, sia negli stati Uniti che in Europa, sono stati sviluppati diversi sistemi di siglatura e interpretazione che hanno poco in comune fra di loro, se non l’uso delle 10 tavole standard. Tanto che, quando si fa riferimento al test di Rorschach si fa riferimento alle 10 tavole standard di cui è composto, cinque in bianco e nero (I, IV, V, VI, VII) e cinque a colori (II, III, VIII, IX, X). In virtù di questa diversità, esistono in realtà tanti test di Rorschach quanti sono i sistemi sviluppati negli anni. Questa “babele” di linguaggi ha ostacolato la credibilità scientifica del test e creato le condizioni per un modello unificatore, psicometricamente affidabile e valido, accettato dalla comunità scientifica, cioè il Comprehensive System (CS) di John E. Exner (1928-2006) nella seconda metà degli anni ’80
The Clinical Utility of the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research: A Review of Studies
No full textBackground: The Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research (DCPR) are a set of 12 psychosomatic syndromes and are provided with a reliable diagnostic structured interview. The DCPR have been proposed 20 years ago as an integrative assessment strategy that supplements the traditional psychiatric nosography for identifying patients within a given illness population whose psychosocial factors have clinical significance. This paper reviews their clinical utility, conceived as the degree and the amount of influence that the instrument has on multiple decisions and outcomes in clinical practice. Methods: Published reports which involved the use of the DCPR were identified by searching electronic databases. Studies which best displayed the clinical utility of the DCPR system were then selected and reviewed. Results: The DCPR system showed its clinical utility regarding the following clinical issues: (1) subtyping medical patients, (2) identifying subthreshold or undetected syndromes, (3) evaluating the burden of somatic syndromes, and (4) predicting treatment outcomes and identifying risk factors. Conclusions: The DCPR may help clinicians during the assessment process to recognize clinical conditions underlying symptom presentation, with important therapeutic and prognostic implications
Health outcomes in intimate partner violence victims Rosa, I., Conti, C., Zito L., Porcelli, P.
No full textFragile heroes. The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health-care workers in Italy.
Full text linkThis survey-based study aimed to explore the mental health status and psychological care needs of 933 health-care workers in Italy during the COVID-19 outbreak. Sociodemographic data, exposure to COVID-19, perception of psychological care needs, depression, anxiety, somatization, and post-traumatic symptoms were concurrently assessed. The majority of the sample (71%) suffered from somatization and 55% of distress. Female care workers experienced higher levels of anxiety (d = 0.50) and somatization symptoms (d = 0.82) and stated they needed psychological care more than men (p < .001). Younger participants (aged <40 years-old) reported higher levels of somatization, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic symptoms (effects size range from d = 0.22 to d = 0.31). Working in a high infected area (red-zones) and directly with COVID-19 patients (front-line) affected the psychological health of participants to a smaller degree. Health-care workers who lost one of their patients reported higher levels of depression (d = 0.22), anxiety (d = 0.19), post-traumatic symptoms (d = 0.30), and psychological care needs than those who did not have the same experience (p < .01). Health-care workers who perceived the need for psychological support scored above the clinical alarming level (cut-off scores) in all the psychological scales, ranging from 76% to 88%. Psychological distress (p < .01), anxiety (p < .05), depression (p < .05), and being women (p < .01) contribute to explain the need for psychological care and accounted for 32% of the variance in this sample. These findings point out the importance to consider the psychological impact of COVID-19 on Italian health-care workers and strongly suggest establishing psychological support services for providing adequate professional care
Influence of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Disease Activity and Quality of Life in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients
No full textObjective: The present preliminary cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the extent
to which health-related quality of life of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)
was influenced by the outbreak of Covid-19 while controlling for disease activity.
Methods: Two samples of 195 (recruited before Covid-19 outbreak) and 707 patients
(recruited during the Covid-19-related lockdown) were included. Psychological distress
(Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, HADS), quality of life (Inflammatory Bowel
Disease Questionnaire, IBDQ), and somatization (Patient Health Questionnaire, PHQ-12)
were concurrently assessed.
Results: Patients with active IBD were more prevalently affected by ulcerative colitis
(60.2%, !2 = 0.12) and, expectedly, showed higher psychological distress (HADS,
d = 0.34) and somatization (PHQ-12, d = 0.39), as well as poorer disease-specific
health-related quality of life (effect sizes for the total and subscale IBDQ scores in the large
range of d > 0.50). Hierarchical regression models revealed that setting (pre-Covid-19
outbreak vs. during lockdown) (p < 0.001) explained only a small portion (8%) of the IBDQ
variance. IBD-related factors (ulcerative colitis and disease activity) and psychological
factors (psychological distress and somatization) added a significant amount of 25 and
27%, respectively, to the explained IBDQ variance. The final model predicted 59% of the
explained IBDQ variance.
Conclusion: Clinical and psychological manifestations seem to be major impairments
in IBD patients both before and during the Covid-19 outbreak. Furthermore, the quality
of life of IBD patients seem to be more influenced by psychological and somatizing
distressing symptoms than the pandemic-related living conditions
Influence of DCPR Syndromes in the Psychosocial Functioning of Patients with Major Depressive and Bipolar Disorders
No full textAnxiety and depressive symptoms among hospital staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: Longitudinal results from the international COPE-CORONA study
No full textObjective
To investigate the long-term changes in anxiety and depressive symptoms, protective and risk factors in hospital staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, our aims were: 1) to evaluate sociodemographic, work-related, and individual characteristics associated with changes in distress symptoms; 2) to explore whether and to what extent sociodemographic, work-related, and individual characteristics predict distress symptoms.
Methods
Two online surveys were distributed to hospital staff in six countries (Germany, Andorra, Spain, Italy, Iran, Ireland) between May–October 2020 (T1) and between February–April 2021 (T2). An international working group was established for this study, supported by the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine. Sociodemographic characteristics, contact with COVID-19 patients, anxiety and depressive symptoms, self-compassion, sense of coherence, social support, risk perception, and health and safety at the workplace were evaluated in 611 hospital workers using self-report measures.
Results
Between T1 and T2, we found a significant increase in anxiety and depressive symptoms. Lower levels of self-compassion and sense of coherence over time were reported in subjects with anxiety or depressive symptoms both at T1 and T2. High levels of risk perception (T2) and low levels of self-compassion (T2), sense of coherence (T2), and social support (T1 and T2) significantly predicted anxiety or depressive symptoms at T2.
Conclusion
These findings point out the risk of developing and maintaining distress symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with lower individual and work-related resources in hospital workers. Therefore, enhancing these resources may be a starting point for providing adequate psychological support interventions
The self and its internal thought: In search for a psychological baseline
No full text: Self-consciousness is neuronally associated with the brain's default mode network as its "neuronal baseline" while, psychologically the self is characterized by different thought modes and dynamics. We here raise the question whether they reflect the "psychological baseline" of the self. We investigate the psychological relationship of the self with thought modes (rumination, reflection) and mind-wandering dynamics (spontaneous, deliberate), as well as with depressive symptomatology. Our findings show a relationship between self-consciousness and i) mind-wandering dynamics, and ii) thought functional modes, in their respective forms. At the same time, self-consciousness is more related to spontaneous mind-wandering than deliberate and to rumination than reflection. Furthermore, iii) rumination acts as a mediator between self-consciousness and spontaneous mind-wandering dynamics; and iv) the relationship between high levels of self-consciousness and depressive symptoms is mediated by ruminative modes and spontaneous mind-wandering dynamics. Together, these findings support the view of the self as "psychological baseline"
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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