scholarly journals The Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale and the Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief: The Italian Validation of Two Instruments for Meaning-Focused Assessments of Bereavement

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Robert A. Neimeyer ◽  
Ines Testoni ◽  
Lucia Ronconi ◽  
Gianmarco Biancalani ◽  
Marco Antonellini ◽  
...  

Background: Bereavement is an inevitable event that can cause pain, discomfort, and negative consequences in daily life. Spirituality and religiosity can help people cope with loss and bereavement. Sometimes, however, the death of a loved one can challenge core religious beliefs and faith, which has been found to be a risk factor for prolonged mourning. Objectives: (1) Determine whether the Italian versions of the Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale (ISLES) and Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief (ICSG) are valid in translation; (2) Evaluate the impact of socio-demographic variables on ISLES and ICSG dimensions; (3) Test whether Complicated Spiritual Grief mediates the relation between meaning reconstruction after loss and integration of the loss experience; (4) Test whether the representation of death as a form of passage or annihilation further moderated the relation between Complicated Spiritual Grief and integration of the loss. Methods: The sample is composed of 348 participants who had lost a loved person in the prior two years. Results: The ISLES and ICSG were validated in Italian and are more appropriately interpreted as having a unifactorial structure. A greater spiritual crisis was manifested in participants with less education, who did not actively participate in religious life, and who had lost a friend rather than a close relative. As hypothesised, spiritual struggle in grief mediated the role of continuing bonds, Emptiness and Meaninglessness, and Sense of Peace in predicting integration of the loss. Furthermore, death representation moderated the impact of spiritual grief on loss, such that those participants who viewed death as a form of annihilation rather than passage reported greater integration of the loss. Conclusion: The role of meaning making in integrating significant loss is partly accounted for by spiritual struggle in a way that can be analysed in Italian contexts through the use of these newly validated instruments.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristian Carmeli ◽  
Zoltán Kutalik ◽  
Pashupati P. Mishra ◽  
Eleonora Porcu ◽  
Cyrille Delpierre ◽  
...  

AbstractIndividuals experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage in childhood have a higher rate of inflammation-related diseases decades later. Little is known about the mechanisms linking early life experiences to the functioning of the immune system in adulthood. To address this, we explore the relationship across social-to-biological layers of early life social exposures on levels of adulthood inflammation and the mediating role of gene regulatory mechanisms, epigenetic and transcriptomic profiling from blood, in 2,329 individuals from two European cohort studies. Consistently across both studies, we find transcriptional activity explains a substantive proportion (78% and 26%) of the estimated effect of early life disadvantaged social exposures on levels of adulthood inflammation. Furthermore, we show that mechanisms other than cis DNA methylation may regulate those transcriptional fingerprints. These results further our understanding of social-to-biological transitions by pinpointing the role of gene regulation that cannot fully be explained by differential cis DNA methylation.


Author(s):  
Flavia Malureanu ◽  
Luiza Enachi-Vasluianu

The impact teachers have on their students is imprinted to a much extent in each person’s life. Every child, teenager or adult speaks of present or previous experiences related to teachers who left their marks on their development in life. Teachers are important people in children’s life providing them with education, discipline, motivation and role-models. The guiding role of teachers is not limited to school classroom and school disciplines, but it surpasses didactic activities and extends into personal life. Truth is that children feel differently the influence exerted by teachers due to their sensitivity, personalities, life experiences. The identification of the aspects that influence students to a greater or less extent is important as it helps to shape a profile of an authentic teacher as s/he is perceived by students. Such a perspective may help teachers become aware of their role in students’ lives and as a consequence they should make adjustments in order to become better partners for their students.The present paper intends to study teachers’ impact on students in their life lifelong development. The aspects taken into consideration, according to specific literature and experiences in classrooms, were: school performances, behavioural patterns, adjustment to school requirements, motivation for learning, professional choices for future careers, outlooks on life. The research methods were the investigation based on questionnaire, the conversation and the systematic observation. The participants in the research were 200 students from two school levels: high school (students 15-19 years old) and faculty (students 19-30 years old). The data collected were processed using the SPSS analysis. The results of the research could be used to increase teachers’ awareness on their impact on students in their lifelong development. 


Author(s):  
Iryna ROZINA

The relevance of the research is related to the need for studying the character of psychosomatic disorders in adolescence, which is insufficiently investigated and requires more in-depth research, in particular designing a comprehensive program that includes a system of training exercises to overcome psychosomatic disorders. The problem of studying psychosomatic relationships is one of the most difficult problems of modern psychology and medicine, despite the fact that the close connection between mental and somatic has been studied for several centuries. Mental trauma is a leading cause of neuroses formation and progress, its pathogenic significance is determined by the complex interaction with many other factors being a result of an individual’s life, formation of his body and personality, especially in adolescence. The subject of the research is to study special features of psychosomatic disorders, as well as to design a program for adolescents with signs of neurotic disorders. The subject matter of the research is the peculiarities of psychosomatic disorders manifestation and neurotic signs in adolescence. The article presents a theoretical analysis of modern approaches in psychology to the study of psychosomatic disorders peculiarities, their classification, considering the signs of neurotic disorders in adolescence. The work analyzes age characteristics of psychosomatic disorders in adolescence. Modern adolescents are exposed to various stressors, to the impact of audiovisual information, school overload, extra classes, exams, and a special problem that is a change in quality of life and prevalence of alcoholism, smoking, drug addiction, especially drug addiction among adolescents. The complex of these factors has negative consequences both on a psychological and physical level. Most authors who study the causes of psychosomatic illnesses recognize the important role of parents in the development of mentally and physically healthy children. Many studies highlight the role of early mother-child relationships in the formation of psychosomatic pathology. Various violations of this relationship usually lead to abnormalities in a child’s development. (M. Mahler, E. T. Eidemiller, Yustitskis, D. Winnicott, M. Klein). The results of an empirical study aimed at identifying signs of psychosomatic disorders are considered. The following methods were used: observation, questionnaires, and such methods as diagnosis of neurotic disorders in adolescence (DND), diagnosis of the level of school anxiety by Phillips, “Non-existent animal” by M.Z. Drukarevich. The peculiarities of designing and testing the correction program, which is aimed at reducing the signs of neurotic manifestations in adolescence, are revealed. Objectives of the correction program are: searching for interaction of adolescents with society, finding and testing skills of effective response to external stimuli; increasing the level of self-esteem; removal of emotional tension; reducing anxiety. The results confirm the possibility of reducing the signs of neurotic manifestations of adolescents and help to delay or completely stop a possible personality disorder.


InterConf ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 54-59
Author(s):  
Bohdana Hunko

The paper analyzes the role of Industry 4.0 in the process of overcoming the global economy from the crisis situation associated with the total Covid-19 pandemic. The aspect of economic profitability of using the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution to improve world economic development in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic was also identified. The author identified the positive and negative consequences of the involvement of technology Industry 4.0, on the basis of which a number of recommendations for small and medium-sized businesses were formed in order to quickly overcome the negative effects of the crisis. Based on the work, the author formulated a number of trends and prospects for global economic development, taking into account the current conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic.


Crisis ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Begley ◽  
Ethel Quayle

Abstract. In recent years, a plethora of research studies have attempted to delineate the grief experiences associated with suicide from those of other sudden traumatic deaths. The emerging consensus suggests that bereavement through suicide is more similar than different to other bereavements, but is characterized by the reactions of shame, stigma, and self-blame. The causal nature of these reactions has yet to be fully understood. This study reports on the lived experiences of eight adults bereaved by suicides, which were obtained through in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four main themes dominated the relatives' grief experiences. First, the early months were checkered by attempts to “control the impact of the death.” The second theme was the overwhelming need to “make sense of the death” and this was coupled with a third theme, a marked “social uneasiness.” Finally, participants had an eventual realization of a sense of “purposefulness” in their lives following the suicide death. Overall, the findings suggest that suicide bereavement is molded and shaped by the bereaved individual's life experiences with the deceased and their perceptions following social interactions after the event. The findings from this study suggest that “meaning making” may be an important variable in furthering our understanding of the nuances in suicide bereavement.


2009 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-112
Author(s):  
Michel Boucher

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role and practices of the Quebec Transport Commission (QTC), and attempts to assess the significance of regulatory restrictions in this province and their impact on the performance of the Quebec trucking industry. So the interpretation given by the QTC to the test of "public convenience and necessity" makes the requirement for a licence a major obstacle to entry. The rate approval process in Quebec, on the other hand, appears to be largely a formality; the proportion of requests for rate changes granted in whole or in part by the QTC tends to generally be well over 90 percent. These aspects, along with the significant role of the Quebec Tariff Bureau, suggest that regulation is likely to substantially reduce competition and provide for the realization of monopoly rents. However, a number of factors have eroded the influence both of the QTC and the Quebec Tariff Bureau. The availability of substitute transport services has substantially reduced the effects of the QTC's entry restrictions. In this regard, it is refered specifically to the services of freight brokers and leasing (or pseudo-leasing) firms, and to the potential alternatives in the form of rail and private carriage. In addition, "illegal trucking" has become an important phenomenon in the province as a result of the rather lax enforcement of the Commission's regulations and the low fines for violations. As for the activities of the Quebec Tariff Bureau, it is pointed out that it does not and could not effectively "cartelize" the industry given its inability to enforce rates and production quotas, and the strong incentive of individual members to undermine any such cartel. An examination of various aspects of the performance of the Quebec trucking industry was found to confirm the importance of competitive factors. Although some permits in the province have acquired a market value, these were estimated to be quite low (as a percentage of operating revenue), well below the levels found for the U.S. This suggests that regulation is not giving rise to very substantial excess profits for the industry as a whole. A comparison of before-tax rates of return for firms in Quebec and firms in Alberta supports this finding. More generally, the analysis of market structure and performance leads to the conclusion that trucking regulation in Quebec is largely ineffective. The availability of intra-modal and inter-modal substitutes has considerably reduced the impact of regulation on industry performance and greatly diminished its negative consequences for allocative efficiency.


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