No abstract

During the COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Italy, general practitioners (GPs) are ensuring continued access to primary care for citizens while also absorbing more of the impact of the crisis than most professional groups. The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between dimensions of burnout and various psychological features among Italian GPs during the COVID-19 emergency. A group of 102 GPs completed self-administered questionnaires available online through Google Forms, including Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Resilience Scale, Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale Short Form (IU), and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS). Cluster analysis highlighted four distinct burnout risk profiles: Low Burnout, Medium Risk, High Risk, and High Burnout. The High Burnout group showed both lower Resilience and lower CISS Task-oriented coping strategy than the Medium Risk group and higher IU Prospective than the Low Burnout group. Results of a linear regression analysis confirmed that CISS Emotion-oriented style positively predicted MBI Emotional Exhaustion, CISS Task-oriented and Emotion-oriented emerged as significant predictors (negatively and positively, respectively) of MBI Depersonalization, and Resilience positively predicted MBI Personal Accomplishment. In conclusion, the results showed that the COVID-19 emergency had a significant impact on GPs’ work management. Implementing task-oriented problem management, rather than emotional strategies, appears to protect against burnout in these circumstances. It is possible that the emotions related to the pandemic are too intense to be regulated and used productively to manage the professional issues that the COVID-19 pandemic presents.

The COVID-19 outbreak has placed extraordinary demands upon healthcare systems worldwide. Italy's hospitals have been among the most severely overwhelmed, and as a result, Italian healthcare workers' (HCWs) well-being has been at risk. The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between dimensions of burnout and various psychological features among Italian healthcare workers (HCWs) during the COVID-19 emergency. A group of 267 HCWs from a hospital in the Lazio Region completed self-administered questionnaires online through Google Forms, including the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Resilience Scale, and Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale Short Form (IU). Cluster analysis highlighted two opposite burnout risk profiles: low burnout and high-risk burnout. The high-risk group had lower resilience and greater difficulties in tolerating the uncertainty than the low-burnout group. A set of general linear models confirmed that both IU subscales, prospective and inhibition, moderated the relationship between resilience and burnout (specifically in the depersonalization dimension). In conclusion, the results showed that individual levels of resilience and one's ability to tolerate uncertainty have been significant factors in determining the impact of the COVID-19 emergency on HCWs. The use of emotional strategies that allow individuals to stay in a critical situation without the need to control it appears to protect against burnout in these circumstances.

The referential process is defined in the context of Bucci's multiple code theory as the process by which nonverbal experience is connected to language. The English computerized measures of the referential process, which have been applied in psychotherapy research, include the Weighted Referential Activity Dictionary (WRAD), and measures of Reflection, Affect and Disfluency. This paper presents the development of the Italian version of the IWRAD by modeling Italian texts scored by judges, and shows the application of the IWRAD and other Italian measures in three psychodynamic treatments evaluated for personality change using the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP-200). Clinical predictions based on applications of the English measures were supported.

A relation between alexithymia and RA has been proposed on theoretical grounds, but there has been minimal empirical investigation. This was the first study to employ both a self-report measure and a structured interview for measuring alexithymia in relation to RA. The results of this study suggest a complex, nonlinear relation between alexithymia and RA; this finding is essentially obtained with the structured interview measure of alexithymia. This relation is presumably influenced by subject-specific characteristics.