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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic can have a serious impact on children and adolescents' mental health. We focused on studies exploring its traumatic effects on young people in the first 18 months after that the pandemic was declared, distinguishing them also according to the type of informants (self-report and other-report instruments). Objective: We applied a meta-analytic approach to examine the prevalence of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and psychological distress among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the moderating role of kind of disorder and/or symptom, type of instrument, and continent. Method: We used PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus databases to identify articles on the COVID-19 pandemic, applying the following filters: participants until 20 years of age, peer-review, English as publication language. Inclusion required investigating the occurrence of disorders and/or symptoms during the first 18 months of the pandemic. The search identified 26 publications. Results: The meta-analysis revealed that the pooled prevalence of psychological disorders and/or symptoms for children and adolescents, who were not affected by mental health disturbances before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, was.20, 95% CI [.16,.23]. Moreover, we found a moderating role of type of instrument: occurrence was higher for self-report compared to other-report instruments. Conclusions: The study presented an analysis of the psychological consequences for children and adolescents of the exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic, soliciting further research to identify factors underlying resilience. Notwithstanding limitations such as the small number of eligible articles and the fact that we did not examine the role of further characteristics of the studies (such as participants' age or design), this meta-analysis is a first step for future research documenting the impact of such an unexpected and devastating disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Following disasters, children and adolescents can use coping strategies to feel better. A growing body of studies investigated the relation between them and maladjustment/adjustment, i.e., negative symptomatology/positive indicators of development. Yet, these constructs are studied separately. Objective: We conducted two meta-analyses to examine the mean correlation between disaster-related coping strategies and indicators of maladjustment/adjustment following natural disasters in children and adolescents, considering the role of some moderators. Methods: We used PsycINFO, PubMed, Eric, and Scopus databases to identify articles on natural disasters (filters: participants ≤ 18 years at the disaster, peer-review, English language). Inclusion required investigating the relation between at least one coping strategy and at least one indicator of maladjustment (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder, depression) and/or adjustment (e.g., self-efficacy, emotion understanding), for a total of 26 studies (k = 64, n = 9692, for maladjustment; k = 37, n = 3504, for adjustment). Results: There were global positive significant correlations between coping strategies and negative symptomatology (rpooled =.23) for maladjustment, and positive indicators (rpooled =.17) for adjustment. Negative symptomatology positively correlated with escape (r =.19), social isolation (r =.15), submission (r =.64), and opposition (r =.16); positive indicators positively correlated with problem solving (r =.31), social support (r =.22), and submission (r =.30). We found a moderating role of age, disaster type, and continent for maladjustment. Conclusions: The study presented an analysis of the coping strategies that can be effective for children and adolescents dealing with natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that human behaviour is a major cause of environmental problems, psychology can play a crucial role in the efforts to deal with environmental issues. Environmentally significant behaviours (EBs) are defined as behaviours that harm the (natural) environment as little as possible or that contribute to its protection. However, psychologists often assess behaviours that are the target of interest without knowing their influence on the ecological system. The Pro-Environmental Behaviours Scale (PEBS; Markle in Hum Ecol 41:905–914, 2013) is, to our knowledge, the only scale based on empirical evidence from environmental scientific studies that covers the principal EBs categories proposed in the literature (private-sphere environmentalist, activism, and nonactivist behaviours in the public sphere). The aim of this paper is to adapt the original PEBS to the Italian context (qualitative phase) and to verify its psychometric properties (e.g. factor structure) (quantitative phase). The original scale was slightly modified following a suggestion obtained in a focus group (n = 17) and in a pilot study (n = 18). On a sample of 765 Italian adults [70% female, mean (SD) age = 41.7 (12.2), 2 missing] results revealed a 4-factor structure (conservation, environmental citizenship, food, and transportation) of the Italian PEBS, like the original version (Markle 2013), maintaining 15 of the 19 original items (CFI =.973; RMSEA =.037: WRMR = 1.047; χ(84)2 = 170.63, p <.001; explained variance = 42%). Other psychometrics properties were "good" or better. Results suggest that the Italian PEBS is a valid and reliable tool for assessing the principal EBs proposed by the literature as having a great impact on the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution introduces the Multidimensional Qualitative Job Insecurity Scale (MQJIS). Drawing from the qualitative job insecurity literature and addressing some of other scales' limitations, a multidimensional model is proposed and investigated by means of confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel confirmatory factor analysis. Study 1 aims to explore the psychometric properties and factorial structure of MQJIS in an Italian sample of blue-collar workers (N = 583), showing that a model with one higher-order factor (i.e., qualitative job insecurity) and four dimensions (i.e., social relationships, employment conditions, working conditions, and work content) shows a good fit to the data and good reliability indices. Study 2 aims to investigate MQJIS measurement invariance across several groups, based on country of origin, age, and gender. Results on a sample of Belgian and Italian workers (N = 710) show that MQJIS met the criteria for uniqueness invariance across genders and scalar invariance across countries and age groups. Significance, implications, and future directions stemming from the initial validation and the confirmed measurement invariance of this scale are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to investigate the impact of family-level variables (emotional autonomy and the quality of the parents-adolescent relationship) on socio-emotional adjustment (loneliness and self-esteem) in adolescents with learning disabilities (LDs) and the role of the quality of the teacher-adolescent relationship in moderating the effects of these impacts. The participants are 293 typically developing adolescents (TD group) and 50 adolescents with learning disabilities (LD group), aged between 13 and 20. The following measures were administered: the Emotional Autonomy Scale (EAS), the Loneliness and Aloneness Scale for Children and Adolescents (LACA), the Assessment of Interpersonal Relations (AIR), and the Multidimensional Self Concept Scale (MSCS). The data showed that adolescents with LDs display significantly higher levels of peer-related loneliness, and lower levels of self-concept and perceived quality of relationships with parents and teachers. No significant differences emerged between the groups in emotional autonomy and in parent-related loneliness. Path analysis indicated that, in adolescents with LDs, emotional autonomy was more closely related to self-concept than in typically developing adolescents. A positive teacher-adolescent relationship could have a moderating effect on the relationships between the dimension considered only in the LD group. The findings have important implications for the implementation of intervention programs focused on social and emotional competences in young people with LDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loneliness is a crucial part of people's experience in the transition to adulthood. Several developmental tasks, such as the separation/individuation process and exploration in the interpersonal domains connected with identity acquisition, lead adolescents to seek solitary experiences. Adolescents are involved in the redefinition of their relationships with parents and peers, moving away from their dependence on the family. The aim of the present study is to assess the effects of two aspects of autonomy: emotional autonomy (separation and detachment) and autonomous motivation for solitary behavior, on parent- and peer-related loneliness during adolescence. The participants were 977 adolescents (447 males and 530 females), aged between 14 and 20 years ( M = 16.31; SD = 1.57), recruited from Italian high schools. The Italian versions of the Loneliness and Aloneness Scale for Children and Adolescents, of the Emotional Autonomy Scale and of the Frequency of and Autonomy for Solitary and Interpersonal Behavior scale were administered to each participant. Structural equation models and path analysis indicate the effects of separation-individuation process dimensions both on parent- and peer-related loneliness. Specific differences emerge between the two dimensions of loneliness. Peer-related loneliness is more influenced by autonomous motivation than is parent-related loneliness, and controlled motivation mediates its relationship with separation. The relationships among the constructs are discussed in the light of the separation-individuation process and with regard to the prevention of maladaptive outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meta-analytic and traditional reviews on safety climate reveal theoretical and methodological safety climate issues still open. The main aim of this study is to propose a questionnaire which combines recent and different approaches to safety climate, trying to give a contribute about these issues. The present research led to the development of a new questionnaire to measure safety climate, suitable for blue-collar workers, and to the evaluation of its psychometric properties, and usefulness to measure safety climate in the industrial sector. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) was used to properly evaluate the factor structure underlying the safety climate questionnaire composed of three scales: organizational safety climate scale, supervisor's safety climate scale and co-workers' safety climate scale. The clear distinction, made with the use of three different scales, among safety agents (organization, supervisor, co-workers), allows the assessment of workers' perceptions focused on each level, and allows to deeply explore, for instance, lateral relationships of supervisor's safety climate and co-workers' safety climate, analysing the interactions between the roles of these two safety agents. A two-level design was used, considering the individual level and the work-group level. Data collection involved 1,617 blue-collars from eight Italian manufacturing companies. The MCFA results demonstrated the importance to use proper analysis to study the factor structure of a multilevel construct as safety climate, and confirmed the theoretical structure of safety climate purposed from Griffin and colleagues, using not only psychological climate (i.e., the individual level), but also the group level safety climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]