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Background: Parenting factors have been implicated in the aetiology and maintenance of child anxiety. Most research has been correlational with little experimental or longitudinal work. Cross-cultural comparison could be illuminating. A comparison of Italian and British children and their mothers was conducted. Methods: A sample of 8- to 10-year old children, 60 Italian and 49 English, completed the Spence Child Anxiety Scale. Mothers also completed two questionnaires of parenting: the Skills of Daily Living Checklist (assessing maternal autonomy granting) and the Parent-Child Interaction Questionnaire (assessing maternal intrusiveness). Parenting was assessed in two video-recorded blindly rated mother-child interaction tasks, the "belt-buckling" tasks and the "etch-a-sketch ", providing objective indices of overcontrol, warmth, lack of autonomy granting, and overprotection. Results: There were no differences between the children in overall anxiety and specific forms of anxiety. Parenting, however, was markedly different for the two countries. Compared to English mothers, on the two questionnaires, Italian mothers were significantly less autonomy granting and more intrusive; and in terms of the observed indices, a significantly greater proportion of the Italian mothers displayed a high level of both overprotection and overcontrol, and a low level of autonomy granting. Notably, Italian mothers evidenced significantly more warmth than English mothers; and maternal warmth was found to moderate the impact of self-reported maternal intrusiveness on the level of both overall child anxiety and the level of child separation anxiety; and it also moderated the relationship between both observed maternal intrusiveness and overall child anxiety and observed maternal overprotectiveness and child separation anxiety. Conclusions: Although, compared to the British mothers, the Italian mothers were more likely to evidence high levels of parenting behaviours previously found to be anxiogenic, the high levels of warmth displayed by these mothers to their children appears to have neutralised the adverse impact of these behaviours.

Objective: The study aims to assess the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers' work-related stress during the first wave of the pandemic in Italy. The main objective is to investigate the existence of a positive correlation between hopelessness and burnout, assuming that burnout may be a risk factor for the development of hopelessness, and to analyze the role that trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI) and changes in workload could have in this relationship. Furthermore, evaluate any significant differences in burnout and hopelessness levels in the function of some demographic variables, such as gender, professional profiles, and different working zones of Italy, to better understand how the diverse diffusion of pandemic had affected Italian healthcare workers. Methods: An online survey was used to collect data between April and June, 2020, with 562 responses among nurses (52.1%) and physicians (47.9%). Demographics and changes in workload and work conditions were collected through an ad hoc questionnaire. The Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire- Short Form (TEIQue-SF), The Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and the Link Burnout Questionnaire (LBQ) were used to assess Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI), hopelessness, and burnout, respectively. Results: Correlation analysis showed a significant positive relationship between hopelessness and each burnout dimension. TEI showed negative correlations both with burnout dimensions and hopelessness. Significant differences in burnout and hopelessness levels emerged as a function of some demographic variables such as gender, professional profiles (nurses or physicians), and different working zone of Italy (northern or southern). Results showed that TEI partially mediated the relationship between hopelessness and every burnout dimension, while the interaction of changes in workload was non-significant. Discussion: The mediating role of TEI in the burnout-hopelessness relationship partly explains the protective role that individual factors had on healthcare workers' mental health. Our findings support the need to integrate considerations on both psychological risk and protective factors into COVID-19 care, including the monitoring of psychological symptoms and social needs, especially among healthcare workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract: Objective: To compare the levels of and changes in quality of life (QoL) during pregnancy between couples who conceived spontaneously and couples who underwent successful treatment by assisted reproductive technology (ART). Methods: In a survey at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, Reggio Emilia, Italy, between September 11, 2009, and May 25, 2011, 230 individuals (57 ART couples and 58 couples who conceived spontaneously) completed Short-Form 36 on QoL at 22 and 32 gestational weeks. Results: Compared with men, women had lower scores in most dimensions of QoL regardless of the method of conception; women also showed a decrease in physical and social QoL during pregnancy that was not evident among men. Compared with non-ART couples, ART couples had lower physical (especially women) and social QoL; ART couples also showed a decrease in social QoL from the second to the third trimester that was not observed among non-ART couples. Conclusion: The results underline the higher burden that pregnancy represents for women on a physical and social level. ART treatment seems to increase the negative impact of pregnancy on QoL in the couple as a whole; early support in adjusting to the realities and demands of pregnancy might prove beneficial for these future parents. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We test the hypothesis that parents who conceived twins by assisted reproduction technology (ART), but experienced loss of one twin, have a different parental-child relationship compared with ART parents following a singleton pregnancy. We used the 1994-2005 ART database of the Centre for Infertility of the Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova in Reggio Emilia, Italy to identify families of 53 singleton births after the 'vanishing' twin syndrome. The controls comprised 106 families who conceived and delivered singletons, matched for gestational age (>or= 28 or= 32 or= 37 weeks), maternal age (< 35, >or= 35 40 years), child's age (1-3, 4-6, and 7-11 years) and child's gender. We completed 3 tests: a sociodemographic questionnaire, the QUIT - Italian Questionnaires of Temperament - motor scale, and the Child Vulnerability Scale. We found that children in the study had significantly more difficulties at the beginning of nursery school (p = .002) and kindergarten (p = .0005), with more frequent anxiety of separation from the parents (nursery school, p = .009; kindergarten, p = .001). We found a lower mean QUIT motor score for the 7- to 11-year-old children when compared to the general Italian normative values, suggesting that parents perceived their children as having more motor difficulties. In contrast, analysis of the Child Vulnerability Scale showed that significantly more parents (15.1%) from the controls perceived their child as vulnerable compared to those from the study group (3.8%), p = .034. We conclude that despite the perceived motor difficulties and the difficulties in the process of individuation-separation that appear at the beginning of the different educational circumstances, parents of singletons following the 'vanishing' twin syndrome perceive their children as 'invincible', and thus less vulnerable compared to controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parenting factors have been implicated in the aetiology and maintenance of child anxiety. Most research has been correlational with little experimental or longitudinal work. Cross-cultural comparison could be illuminating. A comparison of Italian and British children and their mothers was conducted., Methods: A sample of 8- to 10-year old children, 60 Italian and 49 English, completed the Spence Child Anxiety Scale. Mothers also completed two questionnaires of parenting: the Skills of Daily Living Checklist (assessing maternal autonomy granting) and the Parent-Child Interaction Questionnaire (assessing maternal intrusiveness). Parenting was assessed in two video-recorded blindly rated mother-child interaction tasks, the 'belt-buckling tasks and the 'etch-a-sketch', providing objective indices of overcontrol, warmth, lack of autonomy granting, and overprotection., Results: There were no differences between the children in overall anxiety and specific forms of anxiety. Parenting, however, was markedly different for the two countries. Compared to English mothers, on the two questionnaires, Italian mothers were significantly less autonomy granting and more intrusive; and in terms of the observed indices, a significantly greater proportion of the Italian mothers displayed a high level of both overprotection and overcontrol, and a low level of autonomy granting. Notably, Italian mothers evidenced significantly more warmth than English mothers; and maternal warmth was found to moderate the impact of self-reported maternal intrusiveness on the level of both overall child anxiety and the level of child separation anxiety; and it also moderated the relationship between both observed maternal intrusiveness and overall child anxiety and observed maternal overprotectiveness and child separation anxiety., Conclusions: Although, compared to the British mothers, the Italian mothers were more likely to evidence high levels of parenting behaviours previously found to be anxiogenic, the high levels of warmth displayed by these mothers to their children appears to have neutralised the adverse impact of these behaviours., (© 2013 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry © 2013 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)