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Summary: In the context of sleep disturbances, increasing evidence suggests a critical role of sleep‐related dysfunctional metacognitive activity, including metacognitive control of intrusive thoughts in the pre‐sleep period. Although the relationship between sleep‐related thought‐control strategies and poor sleep quality is well recognized, the possible contribution of general metacognitive functioning within this relation is still unclear. In this study, we performed a mediation analysis to examine the role of thought‐control strategies on the relationship between metacognitive abilities and sleep quality in individuals with different self‐reported sleep characteristics. Two‐hundred and forty‐five individuals participated in the study. Participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Thought Control Questionnaire Insomnia‐Revised, and the Metacognition Self‐Assessment Scale to evaluate sleep quality, thought‐control strategies and metacognitive functions, respectively. The results showed that worry strategy in the pre‐sleep period mediates the relationship between metacognitive functions and sleep quality. Particularly, the ability to understand one's mental states and mastery functions could be the two metacognitive domains primarily involved in the dysfunctional metacognitive thought‐control activity responsible for reduced sleep quality. The observed effect suggests that inadequate metacognitive functioning is associated with poor sleep quality in healthy subjects via the mediation of dysfunctional worry strategy. These findings suggest the potential relevance of clinical interventions to enhance specific metacognitive abilities, with the aim to promote more functional strategies for managing cognitive and emotional processes during the pre‐sleep period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Adjustment disorder (AjD) is a is a maladaptive emotional or behavioural reaction to a stressful event or change in a person's life. Compared to other previously validated tools, the International Adjustment Disorder Questionnaire (IADQ) stands out as one of the most reliable and handy one for AjD. Since no homologous instrument exists now, in this study, we aimed to validate an Italian version of the IADQ. Methods: Twenty‐one thousand two hundred and six subjects (80.4% females) during the initial stages of the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic were recruited. We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), testing two latent models, a monofactorial and a bifactorial one. Concurrent validity by correlating the total and the two factors' scores with measures of depression, anxiety and post‐traumatic stress was then estimated. We finally estimated the rates of AjD among the population, and a binary logistic regression was conducted to analyse the predictors of such disorder. Results: CFA showed a bifactorial validity, with both excellent incremental and comparative fit indices. The IADQ scores correlated strongly with symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. In the Italian sample, the prevalence of probable AjD was 8.23%. Female gender, being engaged, widowed and having COVID‐19‐related stressors resulted as significant independent risk factors for AjD. Conclusions: IADQ is an easy‐to‐use, brief and psychometrically sound self‐report measure for AjD. Thus, it may be considered a reliable tool for both research and clinical settings. To the best of our knowledge, our study reported for the first time the prevalence of AjD during COVID‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The ability to experience aesthetics plays a fundamental role in human social interactions, as well as the capacity to feel empathy. Some studies have shown that beauty perception shares part of the neural network underlying emotional and empathic abilities, which are also known to affect sleep quality and duration. In this study, we evaluated for the first time the effects of sleep on the relation between aesthetic perception and empathic abilities in healthy subjects using a mediation analysis approach. One‐hundred and twenty‐six subjects participated in this study. One‐hundred and one subjects slept at home (Sleep Group). The remaining 25 subjects were tested as controls after 1 night of sleep deprivation to assess the effects of lack of sleep on aesthetic perception and empathy (Sleep‐Deprived Group). All participants underwent one testing session in which they performed a battery of empathy tests and an aesthetic perception task (Golden Beauty). The results showed that sleep duration mediates the relationship between empathy and aesthetic perception in the sleep group. The mediation effect of sleep was more evident on the emotional empathy measures. Conversely, in the sleep deprivation group the lack of correlations among empathy, aesthetic perception and sleep variables did not allow to perform the mediation analysis. These results suggest that adequate sleep duration may play a significant role in improving cognitive and emotional empathic abilities as well as the capability to give accurate aesthetic judgements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]