During the COVID-19 pandemic, about 60 million of Italians stayed at home. These circumstances may generate exceptional challenges and stress for people who regularly use cigarettes, ecigarettes, heated tobacco products, dual users, former smokers and never smokers. Here, we present results from a study that was aimed at surveying smoking behaviour and psychological dynamics during the Italian COVID-19 social distancing and stay-at-home policies. Participants living in Italy were invited to complete an online brief questionnaire. A questionnaire was prepared and uploaded in an online survey tool. They were asked to participate regardless of their current smoking status and were divided in seven subgroups. In total, 1825 participants were included in the analysis. Exclusive cigarette smokers; Dual users of cigarette and ecigarettes; Dual users of cigarette and heated tobacco products; Former smokers; Exclusive users of e-cigarette; Exclusive users of heated tobacco products; never smoker. Dual users of cigarette and e-cigarette and exclusive cigarette smokers perceived that their daily consumption has slightly decreased. Exclusive cigarette smokers and exclusive e-cigarette users changed the way of purchasing products. Most exclusive cigarette smokers have considered quitting but most exclusive e-cigarette users have not considered stopping the use of e-cigarettes. In former smokers’ group, about one third of participants declared thoughts about starting to smoke again and in never smokers’ group few participants declared intention to start smoking. The COVID-19 era could be considered a “transition” phase and as such requires a search for a new balance. These changes in everyday habits can be a significant moment to use established and emerging strategies to create a definitive smoke-free world.

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Emergency room have particularly stressful work situations. Emergency room personnel cope with stressors on a daily basis. These stressors can be risks factor for burn out and for reduced quality of life and work motivation. Emergency room staff of one of ASP 3 CT urban hospital in Acireale, Italy participated to stress management program by autogenic training twice a month for 16 weeks. This program were prepared based on existing research and studies, and were conducted by clinical psychologists. We found that the mean value in pre-test is significantly different from mean value in post-test for: Perceived Stress Scale PPS (t=7.72 with 27 df and P<0.001); Euro Quality for life (t=-14,13 with 27 df and P<0.001); Work motivation assessed by Visual Analogue scale VAS (t=-4.52 with 27 df and P<0.001). In the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the mean value is significantly different for emotional exhaustion sub-scale (t=5.64 with 27 with 27 df and P<0.001) and for depersonalization subscale (t=6.67 with 27 df and P<0.001). No significant difference was observed for the personal accomplishment sub-scale. This research suggests that psychological interventions with emergency room staff are effective. Our study showed effectiveness of an auto-genic and stress management training in improvement of quality of life, work motivation, burn-out and stress perceptions for emergency department team.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy has been proven efficacious in restoring affective regulation in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients. However, its effectiveness on emotion processing in children with complex trauma has yet to be explored. High density electroencephalography (hdEEG) was used to investigate the effects of EMDR on brain responses to adults’ emotions on children with histories of early maltreatment. Ten school-aged children were examined before (T0) and within one month after the conclusion of EMDR (T1). hdEEGs were recorded while children passively viewed angry, afraid, happy, and neutral faces. Clinical scales were administered at the same time. Correlation analyses were performed to detect brain regions whose activity was linked to children’s traumatic symptom-related and emotional-adaptive problem scores. In all four conditions, hdEEG showed similar significantly higher activity on the right medial prefrontal and fronto-temporal limbic regions at T0, shifting toward the left medial and superior temporal regions at T1. Moreover, significant correlations were found between clinical scales and the same regions whose activity significantly differed between pre- and post-treatment. These preliminary results demonstrate that, after EMDR, children suffering from complex trauma show increased activity in areas implicated in high-order cognitive processing when passively viewing pictures of emotional expressions. These changes are associated with the decrease of depressive and traumatic symptoms, and with the improvement of emotional-adaptive functioning over time.

Introduction: Most electronic-cigarettes (e-cigarette) are designed to look like traditional cigarettes and simulate the visual, sensory, and behavioral aspects of smoking traditional cigarettes. This research aimed to explore whether different e-cigarette models and smokers' usual classic cigarettes can impact on cognitive performances, craving and gesture.Methods: The study is randomized cross-over trial designed to compare cognitive performances, craving, and gesture in subjects who used first generation electronic cigarettes, second generation electronic cigarettes with their usual cigarettes. (Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT01735487).Results: Cognitive performance was not affected by “group condition.” Within-group repeated measures analyses showed a significant time effect, indicating an increase of participants' current craving measure in group “usual classic cigarettes (group C),” “disposable cigalike electronic cigarette loaded with cartridges with 24 mg nicotine (group H), second generation electronic cigarette, personal vaporizer model Ego C, loaded with liquid nicotine 24 mg (group E). Measures of gesture not differ over the course of the experiment for all the products under investigationConclusion: All cognitive measures attention, executive function and working memory are not influenced by the different e-cigarette and gender showing that in general electronics cigarettes could become a strong support also from a cognitive point of view for those who decide to quit smoking. It seems that not only craving and other smoke withdrawal symptoms but also cognitive performance is not only linked to the presence of nicotine; this suggests that the reasons behind the dependence and the related difficulty to quit smoking needs to be looked into also other factors like the gesture.Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT01735487.