Ricerc@Sapienza

Although literature on happiness has focused largely on adults and adolescents, research interest on subjective well-being in children has increasingly grown in recent years. We investigated the contributions of the self-esteem, loneliness, and friendship variables to children’s happiness after taking into account the moderating effects of gender and age. The children responded to questionnaires evaluating their happiness, friendship variables, social self-efficacy, loneliness, and self-esteem whereas the parents reported the children’s behavioral problems and prosocial behavior.

Italy is a particularly interesting context in which to study the phenomenon of bullying given the steadily increasing number of immigrant students attending Italian primary schools. We examined the psychometric properties of a short self-report measure of bullying and victimization across groups of students with various migration backgrounds. We then estimated, by latent mean comparisons, the rates of prevalence of bullying and victimization among different generations of immigrants and native students.

This study explored the effects of the EMDR Integrative Group Treatment Protocol
(EMDR-IGTP) on child survivors of the earthquakes that struck Umbria, a region of
central Italy, on August 24th and on October 26th 2016. Three hundred and thirty-two
children from the town of Norcia and nearby severely disrupted villages received 3 cycles
of EMDR-IGTP. The Emotion Thermometers (ET-5) and the Children’s Revised Impact
of Event Scale (CRIES-13) were administered before (T0) and about 1 week after the

For several years, pineal cysts have been considered an incidental finding on brain MRI's even though research and case reports have shown a possible association of pineal cysts with headaches and sleep disturbances. This pilot study aims to evaluate sleep disorders in school-age children with an incidental pineal cyst in an otherwise normal brain MRI.

Objective/Background: Massive changes in brain morphology and function in the first years of life reveal a
postero-anterior trajectory of cortical maturation accompanied by regional modifications of NREM sleep.
One of the most sensible marker of this maturation process is represented by electroencephalographic
(EEG) activity within the frequency range of sleep spindles. However, direct evidence that these changes
actually reflect maturational modifications of fast and slow spindles still lacks.
Our study aimed at answering the following questions:

Background: Childhood generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), characterized by uncontrollable worry, is associated with long-term psychopathology risk, yet understanding of developmental trajectories is limited. Despite common complaints about sleep, ‘macro’ sleep abnormalities have not been identified. Emerging findings suggest micro-architectural features of sleep, including sleep spindles, differentiate various psychiatric populations.

Restoration involves individuals' physical, psychological, and social resources, which have diminished over the years in the process of meeting the demands of everyday life. Psychological restoration can be provided by specific environments, in particular by natural environments. Studies report a restorative effect of nature on human beings, specifically in terms of the psychological recovery from attention fatigue and restored mental resources that were previously spent in activities that require attention.

Attention is essential to development and healthy life. Unfortunately, a growing number of school children suffer of chronic attention deficit such as the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Most literature is focused on the role that social environment plays in child development whereas scarce attention is paid on the physical environment, both built and natural.
METHOD

On March 10, 2020, Italy went into lockdown due to the Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. The World Health Organization highlighted how the lockdown had negative consequences on psychological well-being, especially for children. The present study aimed to investigate parental correlates of children’s emotion regulation during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent lockdown have profoundly impacted families’ daily life, challenging their psychological resilience. Our study aimed to investigate the immediate psychological consequences of the pandemic on Italian parents and children focusing on internalizing and post-traumatic symptoms. We also wanted to explore the impact of possible risk and resilience factors, e.g., lifestyle and behaviors, emotional and cognitive beliefs, on parents and children’s reaction to the emergency distress.