Cristina Capanna

Spirituality and Religiosity in the Aftermath of a Natural Catastrophe in Italy

The aim of this study is to assess the influence of spirituality and religiousness on the psychological traumatic effects of a catastrophic event in a population that had been exposed to an earthquake compared with a control population that had not been exposed. A total of 901 people have been evaluated using: (1) Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality; (2) Impact of Event Scale and (3) Trauma and Loss Spectrum-Self Report (TALS-SR). Self-perceptions of spirituality and religiousness were used to rank the samples, distinguishing between spiritual and religious, spiritual-only, religious-only and neither spiritual nor religious groups. The sample that had experienced the earthquake showed lower scores in spiritual dimension. The religious-only group of those who were exposed to the earthquake demonstrated TALS-SR re-experiencing and arousal domain scores similar to the population that was not exposed. A weakening of spiritual religiosity in people having difficulty coping with trauma is a consistent finding. We further observed that the religious dimension helped to buffer the community against psychological distress caused by the earthquake. The religiosity dimension can positively affect the ability to cope with traumatic experiences.

Temperament and Character Inventory-R (TCI-R) and Big Five Questionnaire (BFQ): convergence and divergence.

This study evaluated the correspondence between measures of two competing theories of personality, the five-factor model as measured by the Big Five Questionnaire (BFQ), and Cloningers psychobiological theory measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory—Revised (TCI—R). A sample of 900 Italian participants, balanced with respect to sex (393 men and 507 women), and representative of the adult population with respect to age (range 18 to 70 years; M = 39.6, SD = 15.7) completed the TCI—R and the Big Five Questionnaire. All TCI—R personality dimensions except Self-Transcendence were moderately correlated with one or more of the Big Five dimensions (from r = .40 to .61), and the two instruments showed areas of convergence. However, the differences outweighed the similarities, indicating that these current conceptualizations and measures of personality are somewhat inconsistent with each other.

Humiliation and interpersonal sensitivity in depression.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between humiliation and protective psychosocial factors in a sample of depressed patients. METHOD We assessed humiliation, psychiatric symptoms, negative primary familial environment and resilience in 70 depressed patients, 33 male and 37 female, and analyzed the correlations between these variables. Then to better understand the relations among the assessed variables we controlled for the depression severity and replicated the correlational analyses. RESULTS A pattern of significant correlations among all the constructs emerged. Correlations between humiliation, interpersonal sensitivity, negative primary familial environment and resilience persisted after controlling for depression severity. LIMITATIONS The cross sectional nature of this study; the use of self-report instruments; the lack of personality assessment. CONCLUSIONS This study provides a contribution to the understanding of the relationship between the experience of humiliation and negative primary familial environment, protective factors and clinical interpersonal sensitivity in depressed patients.

P-963 - Relationships between post-traumatic spectrum symptoms and age, gender and degree of exposure to the l’aquila 2009 earthquake

Introduction PTSD and post-traumatic spectrum symptoms represent the most frequently reported psychiatric sequelae of earthquakes and several studies have investigated the role of risk factors1,2. Aim of the present study was to explore PTSD and post-traumatic spectrum symptoms in L’Aquila (Italy) 2009 earthquake survivors and their correlations with age, gender and degree of exposure. Method 1488 subjects were investigated by means of the TALS-SR5. The total sample was divided, by random extraction, in 8 homogenous subgroups comparable for gender, age (≤40 vs >40 years) and direct/indirect exposure to the earthquake. Results 41.3% of exposed subjects presented PTSD vs 16.6% of not exposed. Women reported significantly higher PTSD prevalence rates and post-traumatic spectrum symptoms than men. Exposed subjects reported higher PTSD rates both in the whole sample and in all subgroups, with the only exception of younger men. Conclusion Our results confirm different vulnerability to PTSD after earthquake on the basis of gender, age and degree of exposure.