Fabrizia Giannotta

Associations of frailty and psychosocial factors with autonomy in daily activities : a cross-sectional study in Italian community-dwelling older adults

Frailty has been recognized as a risk factor for geriatric adverse events. Little is known of the role of psychosocial factors associated with frailty in explaining negative outcomes of aging. This study was aimed at 1) evaluating the differences in psychosocial factors among robust, prefrail, and frail individuals and 2) investigating whether there was any interaction effect of frailty status with empirically identified clusters of psychosocial factors on autonomy in the activities of daily living (ADLs). Two-hundred and ten older adults (age 73±6 years, 66% women) were involved in this study. Frailty was assessed using an adapted version of the frailty phenotype. The psychosocial factors investigated were depressive symptoms using the 20-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, social isolation using the Friendship Scale, and loneliness feeling using the eight-item UCLA Loneliness Scale. The autonomy in ADLs was measured with the Groningen Activity Restriction Scale. Thirty-one percent of participants were robust, 55% prefrail, and 14% frail. We performed an analysis of covariance which showed differences between robust, prefrail, and frail individuals for all the psychosocial variables: Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, F(2, 205)=18.48, P<0.001; Friendship Scale, F(2, 205)=4.59, P=0.011; UCLA Loneliness Scale, F(2, 205)=5.87, P=0.003, controlling for age and sex. Using the same covariates, the two-way analysis of covariance indicated an interaction effect of frailty with psychosocial factors in determining ADLs, F(4, 199)=3.53, P=0.008. This study demonstrates the close relationship between frailty and psychosocial factors, suggesting the need to take into account simultaneously physical and psychosocial components of human functioning.

The role of inhibitory control in children’s cooperative behaviors during a structured puzzle task

This study examined the role of inhibitory control (measured by Stroop interference) in childrens cooperative behaviors during a structured puzzle task. The sample consisted of 250 8-, 10-, and 12-year-olds (117 girls and 133 boys) attending classrooms in three primary schools in Northern Italy. Children individually completed an elaborated Stroop task, were paired with classmates into 125 dyads, and were observed during a 10-min puzzle task. Results confirmed that interaction partners exhibited similar levels of cooperative behaviors, and the cooperative behaviors of children predicted changes in the cooperative behaviors of their partners throughout the puzzle task. Cooperative behaviors of each interaction partner were predicted by the childs own inhibitory control as well as the inhibitory control of the partner. Findings are discussed within a developmental contextual framework.

Improving dissemination of evidence‐based programs through researcher–practitioner collaboration

Prevention field has achieved major advances in developing, implementing, and testing the efficacy of preventive interventions in controlled settings. Nevertheless, there is still a gap in translating the success of programs in efficacy trials into real-life settings. Dissemination of evidence-based programs is a major challenge. The authors argue that promoting adoption of evidence-based programs requires further improvements in three areas, and collaboration between researchers and practitioners. First, there is a need to develop a holistic assessment system encompassing both risk/need and readiness assessments. Second, there is need for new methods for improving implementation quality. Third, prevention research needs to focus more on identifying the mechanisms that explain how programs work and the core elements of the program. Both researchers and practitioners have roles and opportunities to collaborate to achieve developments in these areas.

School Bonding and Alcohol Use in Italian Early Adolescents: What Comes First?

Previous research has identified school bonding as protective against substance use during adolescence. However, there is still a question as to whether school involvement predicts changes in substance use or if substance use actually predicts changes in level of school bonding. This study investigated the relationship between school bonding and alcohol use, which is commonly recognized as gateway drug, during early adolescence. A three-wave longitudinal analysis was conducted on a sample composed of 161 Italian adolescents (51% boys, 49% girls, mean age = 11.14 years, standard deviation =.40). Associations were analyzed by using crossed-lagged autoregressive models in MPlus. Findings revealed that greater school involvement decreased alcohol consumption from Grade 6 to Grade 7. However, greater alcohol use decreased school involvement from Grade 7 to Grade 8. Findings of this study underlined the importance of choosing the right time for prevention.

Strengthening Prevention Science to Ensure Effectiveness of Intervention in Practice: Setting up an International Agenda

Prevention interventions are active tools intervening with psychosocial mechanisms and are capable of positively or negatively changing behavioral and physiological processes. They can thus produce benefits, but also harms, in the target population. In many countries the most diffuse prevention programs have never been evaluated, and their effects are ignored. This has contributed to the perception that prevention is not a science that can be practiced by everybody, despite its good intentions.