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Purpose: Eating self-efficacy (ESE) is the belief in one’s ability to self-regulate eating. Social and emotional situations may be differently challenging depending on the individual eating habits, body mass index and affects. Several ESE scales have been developed but most of them focus on weight management, dieting or healthy eating. The aim of the study was to validate a new brief scale assessing ESE in situations in which people face social or emotional pressures for excessive food intake. Methods: Study 1: A sample of 412 volunteer females (age M?=?25.44?±?5.03) completed a first 25-item version of the scale. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted for selecting a subgroup of items composing the ESE brief scale (ESEBS). Study 2 assessed its psychometric properties through a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), analyzing the responses of 410 volunteer adults (273 females, 137 males). Results: EFA of Study 1 evidenced a bifactorial structure. Four items for each factor were selected, explaining 63% of the variance. Study 2 confirmed the good fit of the bifactorial model (CFI?=?0.9589; ?2(19)?=?62.852, p?<?0.001; RMSEA?=?0.075; SRMR?=?0.040) and provided support for the measurement invariance of the scale across gender. The internal consistency was as follows: Social (a?=?0.786), Emotional (a?=?0.820). The concurrent validity of the subscales was demonstrated by significant latent negative correlations with measures of eating disorders and emotional eating. Conclusions: The 8-items ESEBS appears as a valid and reliable instrument to assess eating self-efficacy related to social and emotional situations. Future studies should evaluate its potential use in non-clinical and clinical research and interventions. Level of evidence: Level V, descriptive cross-sectional study.

Anorectal malformations (ARMs) are rare congenital colorectal anomalies, which may have a negative impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) due to long-lasting consequences, like fecal incontinence. The aim of the present study was to test whether a pervasive mode of appraising and viewing life experiences from a positive stance (ie, positivity) mediates the effect of fecal continence on HRQoL. Participants were enrolled from the Italian Association for Anorectal Malformations. Adult patients with ARMs who completed measures of fecal continence (Hirschsprung Disease/Anorectal Malformation Quality of Life Questionnaire), positivity (Life Satisfaction Scale, Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and Life Orientation Test), and mental/physical HRQoL (SF-36) were included. Data were analyzed using the PROCESS macro for SPSS statistical software (Model 4). The study included 66 adult patients with ARMs. Mediated regression analyses showed a significant total effect in which patients with higher fecal continence perceived higher physical (ß?=?0.210, SE?=?0.038, 95% CI [0.133, 0.286]) and mental HRQoL (ß?=?0.226, SE?=?0.056, 95% CI [0.115, 0.338]) than patients with lower fecal continence. The indirect effects were also significant, indicating that positivity mediated the impact of fecal continence on physical (ß?=?0.026, SE?=?0.017, 95% CI [0.002, 0.068]), and mental HRQoL (ß?=?0.146, SE?=?0.058, 95% CI [0.047, 0.275]). The findings extend previous literature on ARM patients and additional evidence that an optimistic view of oneself, one's life, and one's future contribute to explain the effects of functional impairments on quality of life.

Although most cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of children and adolescents have found a link between short duration of sleep and obesity, the literature related to adults provides a non-consensual framework. The aim of the present study was to examine the association between sleep quality and BMI in a population of caregivers looking after people suffering from dementia, with a view to identifying the moderating role of depressive symptoms in the relationship between sleep problems and BMI. A total of 117 subjects took part in the study, filling in a Sociodemographic Questionnaire, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Eating behavior Questionnaire and The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression. Depressive symptoms were greater in females than in males. The sample was divided into two subgroups based on depressive-symptom scores. Only within the subsample with low depressive symptoms, higher sleep disturbances influenced BMI positively. Within this subsample of participants with low depressive symptoms, the variables that seem to play a pivotal role in explaining a high BMI are: female gender, sleep problems, and diet quality, while within the subsample with high depressive symptoms only the female gender factor was found to influence BMI. Depressive symptoms seem to act as moderators in the relationship between sleep and BMI. They should be evaluated to identify the risk of high BMI, and to differentiate clinical intervention, at least in this population, which experiences the stress of caregiving chronically, though not suffering from clinical eating disorders. Level II, cross-sectional study.

Psychosocial job characteristics and psychological distress / well‐being: the mediating role of personal goal facilitation: Renato Pisanti, et al. Niccolò Cusano University, Faculty of Psychology, Italy This study examined the mediating role of personal goal facilitation through work (PGFW), defined as perceptions of the extent to which one's job facilitates the attainment of one's personal goals, in the association between psychosocial job characteristics and psychological distress and job‐related well‐being. Questionnaire data from 217 nurses (84% female, with a mean age of 42.7 years, SD=7.2) were analyzed. Participants completed the following measures: the Leiden Quality of Work Questionnaire for Nurses, Workplace Goal Facilitation Inventory, Maslach Burnout Inventory‐Human Services Survey, and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (short version). A cross‐sectional study design was applied. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. The results indicated that unfavorable psychosocial job characteristics (high demands, low control, and low social support) were associated with lower PGFW. Furthermore, personal goal facilitation through work explained significant additional variance (from 2 to 11%) in psychological distress (somatic complaints and emotional exhaustion) and job‐related well‐being (personal accomplishment, job satisfaction, and work engagement), controlling for demographic indicators and psychosocial job characteristics. Finally, the results provided support for the mediating effects of PGFW between all psychosocial job characteristics and all outcomes, except in the case of depersonalization. This study suggests that hindered personal goal facilitation may be a mechanism through which psychosocial job characteristics have a negative impact on employees’ wellbeing.

The psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations–Short Version (CISS-SV-21 items) were tested. In a group of 1,291 hospital-based nurses (77.8% women), four alternative factor models of the CISS–SV were tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The four models were: M1, the original CISS-SV-21 items three-factor model corresponding to three dimensions (task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance-oriented coping); M2, the four-factor model corresponding to four dimensions (task-oriented, emotion-oriented, contact a friend-oriented, and treat oneself-oriented) of the CISS–SV (21 items); M3, the three-factor model of the CISS–SV (20 items) made up by the same factor structure of M1 without including Item 1; finally, the four-factor M4 of the CISS–SV (20 items), consisting of the same dimensions of the M2 model without including Item 1. The results of the CFA showed that the M4 factor model was the model that was best able to account for the data (RMSEA=0.06, 90%CI=0.05, −0.06; CFI = 0.90). Reliability was supported by alphas ranging from .72 to .82. The CISS–SV has acceptable validity and reliability for measuring the coping strategies of nurses.

Alterations in emotional reactivity may play a key role in the pathophysiology of insomnia disorder (ID). However, only few supporting experimental data are currently available. We evaluated in a hypothesis-driven design whether patients with ID present altered amygdale responses to emotional stimuli related and unrelated to the experience of insomnia and, because of chronic hyperarousal, less habituation of amygdala responses.

The aim of this study is to evaluate whether the cortical arousal level in subjects with primary insomnia varies according to their quality of nighttime sleep.

Mentation reports collected from sleep onset. Stage 2 and REM Stage awakenings, in the first part and in the second part of the night were analyzed both with systematic psycholinguistic and global measures. Results confirm the relationship between activation and the length of sleep mentation report shown by Antrobus. Length of the report increases with sleep time, but time does not modulate qualitative inter-stage differences. By partialling out the length of the report, many inter-stage differences disappeared; however significant differences remain in the global measure of bizarreness and in the psycholinguistic measure of visual imagery. These results cannot be explained entirely by differences in attention and memory and point to more basic differences in mental activity.

Eighteen right handed females reporting 6 or more dreams per week on a home dream and sleep diary (Dream Recallers: DR), and 11 reporting 1 or 0 dreams per week (Non Dream Recallers: NDR) drawn from a sample of 233 college students, were individually tested on two tasks assessing the hemispheric lateralization of visuo-constructive and verbal-semantic functions. NDR showed a significant degree of hemispheric asymmetry of both visuoconstructive (right hemisphere advantage) and semantic (left hemisphere advantage) functions. DR showed no hemispheric advantage on both tasks. The two groups of subjects did not differ in mean daily amount of sleep time. In keeping with previous studies showing that NDR have an imbalance of interhemispheric activation upon REM awakenings, results from the present research suggest that DR and NDR can be characterized by a different pattern of hemispheric lateralization of cognitive skills. This finding may stimulate further research aimed at evaluating both the possible existence of differences in the lateralization of functions not considered in this study and the concomitance of REM sleep dependent differences in balance of hemispheric functioning

Skin conductance responses (SCR) to emotional and to nonemotional stimuli were measured in 16 right and 16 left unilateral brain-damaged patients. Replicating findings by Morrow, Vrtunski, Kim, & Boller (1981), those patients with a lesion in the left hemisphere showed higher SCR's to emotional than to nonemotional stimuli while those with a right lesion showed no difference between them. This pattern of results remained when variance in performance on a Facial Expression Recognition task was partialled out, suggesting that the absence of differentiated arousal in right-brain-damaged patients is unrelated to their impairment in perceptual analysis.

Sleep disorders are among the factors that can reduce the quality of life in patients with chronic kidney disease. Chronic kidney disease patients could benefit from an accurate evaluation and treatment of insomnia because this sleep disorder is associated with a high persistence-relapse rate, poor physical health, and mental disease (anxiety, depression) both in terms of comorbidity and antecedent. A multilayer evaluation of insomnia is possible because of valid and reliable instruments (both objective and subjective). Furthermore, a rational etiologic model of insomnia allows better understanding and treatment as a result of effective cognitive-behavioral techniques.