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A growing body of research highlights how communities traumatized by conflict and displacement suffer from long-term mental and psychosocial illnesses. The Russian army’s attack on Ukraine has resulted in an estimated 10 million people being internally or externally displaced from Ukraine, of whom more than 3.8 million have left Ukraine to seek refuge elsewhere in Europe. Soleterre has decided to launch an intervention to provide psychological support to Ukrainian refugees and IDPs, aimed at containing war trauma, assessing the severity of symptoms, and enabling those affected to receive psychological support. The intervention model envisioned the administration of an intake form to provide a rapid collection of qualitative and quantitative information for those arriving in Poland or Lviv from Ukraine. Our results showed how most of the samples reported high or very high levels of anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances. Moreover, results highlighted how being close to families or being able to keep in touch with them work as a protective factor in enhancing resilience, as well as a support network. These findings underscored the importance of re-thinking our perception of “family” in a broader sense, considering the new facets it can take on in post-conflict situations.

The aim of the current scoping review was to explore the associations between religious and spiritual factors and the health-related outcomes of adolescents with chronic illnesses, as well as to investigate possible mechanisms accounting for these relationships. In total, 20 studies meeting the eligibility criteria were reviewed after performing a search of the Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases. The results suggested that religious and spiritual beliefs, thoughts, and practices (e.g., spiritual coping activities) might have both beneficial and deleterious effects on the way adolescents deal with their medical condition, on their psychosocial adjustment, on their mental and physical health, and on their adherence to treatments. Mediating and moderating mechanisms explaining these relations were also evidenced. Suggestions for future research and practical implications for healthcare professionals are provided in the concluding section of this work.

Background: Life-threatening events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may generate feelings of insecurity and fear in the affected population, particularly children. Parents’ ability to help children cope with negative emotions is essential during challenging periods. The current study aims to analyse the coping strategies adopted by Italian caregivers concerning their children’s fears about COVID-19. Method: An online survey was administered during the Italian lockdown to 649 parents of at least one child aged 5 to 17 years old. Respondents completed the survey for themselves and their children. In addition, a qualitative content analysis of the data from the open-ended question was conducted (N = 569; 87.9% women; MAge = 45 years). Results: Several themes were identified. Firstly, families’ primary approach was ‘communication and meaning-making’. Secondly, another essential strategy was ‘the importance of safe space’, enabled by keeping routine in place and creating a loving and caring environment. Thirdly, other factors relevant to managing children’s fears were ‘adaptation’, ‘religion’, ‘a positive attitude’, and ‘humour and hope’. Finally, the last two strategies significant and valuable for Italian families were ‘flexibility’ and ‘maintaining virtual contacts. Conclusion: During the pandemic COVID-19, parents may have used various strategies to protect their children from stress. Future research could investigate single parents’ coping strategies explicitly developed during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The current systematic review examines whether there is an association between the genetic 5-HTTPLR polymorphism and parenting, and the mechanisms by which this association operates. The literature was searched in various databases such as PubMed, Scopus, and ScienceDirect. In line with our inclusion criteria, nine articles were eligible out of 22. Most of the studies analysed in this review found an association between 5HTTLPR and parenting. Four studies found a direct association between 5-HTTLPR and parenting with conflicting findings: two studies found that mothers carrying the short variant were more sensitive to their infants, while two studies found that parents carrying the S allele were less sensitive. In addition, several studies found strong interaction between genetic and environmental factors, such as childhood stress and disruptive child behaviour, quality of early care experiences, poor parenting environment, and quality of the environment. Only one study found an association between children’s 5HTTLPR and parenting. Parenting can be described as a highly complex construct influenced by multiple factors, including the environment, as well as parent and child characteristics. According to the studies, maternal 5-HTTLPR polymorphism is most likely to be associated with sensitive parenting.

Despite several empirical studies on the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic that have highlighted its detrimental effect on individuals’ mental health, the identification of psychological factors that may moderate its impact on individuals’ behavior and well-being remains partly unexplored. The present study was conceived to examine the mediation role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy in the relationship between positivity and anxiety, depression, and perceived self-efficacy in complying with the containment measures to contrast the COVID-19 spread. Furthermore, the moderation role of age was tested. A sample of 1258 participants (64.2% women; Mage = 42.09, SD = 13.62) enrolled from the Italian general population answered an online survey aimed at investigating the role of individual differences in facing the COVID-19 pandemic. We opted for a snowball recruiting procedure to find participants. The online survey was disseminated through email invitation and using social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Instagram). A multi-group path analysis model was performed using Mplus 8.4 to explore the hypothesized relations among variables. The following criteria were employed to evaluate the goodness of fit: χ2 likelihood ratio statistic, CFI and TLI > 0.95, RMSEA < 0.06 and SRMR < 0.08. The findings corroborated the protective role of both positivity and regulatory emotional self-efficacy in reducing individuals’ anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as in fostering individuals’ capabilities in complying with the containment measures imposed by the government to reduce the risk of illness and to contain the spread of the virus COVID-19. Specifically, regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs partially mediated the relations between positivity and anxiety and depressive symptoms and fully mediated the effect of positivity on perceived self-efficacy beliefs in complying with the containment measures. These paths were equal across ages. The results of the present study appear relevant to implementing psychological interventions aimed to reduce the deleterious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health through the promotion of individuals’ optimistic orientation and emotion regulation.

The study was conducted with 104 mothers (average age 32.5 years, SD 6.1) of preterm infants (very and moderately preterm but still healthy) to monitor the perceived maternal role competence from the time of hospitalisation to post-discharge, in order to define an intervention program to support mothers during this transition. A targeted Q-Sort tool (Maternal Competence Q-Sort in preterm birth) was applied at two different times as a self-observation tool for parenting competence in neonatology. A tendency towards dysregulation of the maternal role competence was detected, mainly in terms of low self-assessment and was found to worsen during post-discharge, particularly with regard to caregiving ability. This study suggests the importance of accompanying parenting competence in preterm birth conditions, not only during hospitalisation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) but also following discharge in order to promote the development of premature infants. This paper reports in the last part a specific integrated psychoeducational intervention program (psychologist and nurses), which we defined precisely in light of the suggestions offered by the study data on perceived maternal competence created with the Q-sort.

The extraordinary increase in twin rates and specifically monochorionic twin pregnancies represents a major public health issue due to the associated increased risks for the mother, the child and their relationship. The aim of the present study was to examine the quality of mothers’ behaviour during mother–infant interaction in the early postpartum period by comparing mothers of twins and mothers of singletons during face-to-face interaction with their infants. Demographic and clinical information was collected by trained research psychologists from the mothers’ and the childrens’ clinical records and from interviews with the mothers. At three months (corrected for prematurity), the interactions of the dyads (11 mother-twin infant dyads and 11 mother-singleton dyads) were filmed at participants’ homes in accordance with the procedure of the Global Rating Scales. Maternal behaviour during interactions was assessed and rated by two trained research psychologists. With regard to the mothers’ interaction with each twin, no differences were found between mothers’ scores in every GRS subscale, indicating that mothers did not interact differently with their twins. Comparisons between mothers of MC twins and mothers of singletons showed that the quality of maternal sensitive behaviour during the interactions were lower in mothers of twins (0.35) Mothers of twins were also more distant during interactions with their babies and more likely to experience depression symptoms than mothers of singletons (0.05). Future research should examine mother-infant relationships following twin birth with larger samples. Such research will be especially useful in evaluating the potential benefits of interventions to promote positive mother-infant interactions.