These findings provide new insight in clinical presentation of BB injuries: the identification of unique patterns of symptoms related to BB injuries is useful to perform an early diagnosis (and to guarantee a prompt medical reaction), also when the injury is un-witnessed.

Background Choking is one of the leading causes of death among unintentional injuries in young children. Food choking represents a considerable public health burden, which might be reduced through increased effective preventative education programs. We present a protocol for a community intervention trial termed CHOP (CHOking Prevention project) that aimed to teach Italian families how to prevent food choking injuries and increase knowledge relating to nutrition. Methods Italian educational facilities were enrolled. Stratified randomization blocked by geographical area was performed. Each stratum was randomized to one of three different intervention strategies or to a control group. Educational intervention was delivered in the schools by experts and certified trainers as per the following three intervention strategies: directly to families (Strategy A); to teaching staff only, who subsequently delivered the same educational intervention to families (Strategy B); to health service staff only, who then delivered the educational intervention to teaching staff, who subsequently delivered the intervention to families (Strategy C). Participants completed a questionnaire about their knowledge on the topics presented during the educational interventions (pre-, post-, and follow-up of intervention). Information from the questionnaires was synthetized into 6 indicators in order to measure how effective each intervention strategy was. Discussion The issue of food choking injuries in children is relevant to public health. The protocol we present provides an opportunity to progress towards overcoming such challenges through a working model that can be implemented also in other countries. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03218618. The study was registered on 14 July 2017.

ObjectivesThe present work aims to present the results of the ‘PRESTOinsieme’ (which is ‘we will be together soon’ in English). The web-based survey (www.prestoinsieme.com) describes changes in lifestyle habits and symptoms of psychological discomfort in the Italian population during the COVID-19 lockdown.DesignCross-sectional online survey disseminated by messaging apps (ie, WhatsApp and Telegram) and social networks (ie, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn).SettingItaly.ParticipantsItalian population older than 16 years of age.ExposureCOVID-19 lockdown.Main outcomes and measuresSurvey respondents filled out a set of validated questionnaires aimed at assessing lifestyle habits and psychological health, that is, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) to screen for psychological distress, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) to screen for post-traumatic stress and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).ResultsSurvey respondents totalled 5008. Moderate or severe psychological distress was reported in 25.5% and 22% of survey respondents, respectively. Lower age, female gender, being unemployed (OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.22 to 2.02) or being a student (OR 1.73, 95% CI 1.31 to 2.28) were predictors of more severe depressive symptoms.ConclusionsThe present study is one of the largest population-based surveys conducted in Italy during the first COVID-19 lockdown, providing valuable data about the Italian population’s psychological health. Further studies should be conducted to understand whether psychological distress persists after the end of the lockdown.

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There are few public health programs aimed at reducing choking injuries, even though choking is one of the leading causes of death among unintentional injuries in young children. We present the results from the CHOP (CHOking Prevention) project community intervention trial, which aimed to compare three different school-based intervention strategies for food choking prevention. The trial enrolled 41 educational facilities, which were randomized to one of three different intervention strategies to inform about prevention of food choking, or to serve as the control group. In strategy A, education was delivered directly to families, whereas in strategy B, education was delivered first to teachers and by them to families, and in strategy C, education was delivered only to healthcare coordinators in each school and by them to teachers and families. All educational interventions were delivered in the schools by experts and certified trainers. The participants were asked about sociodemographic information and completed questionnaires (pre-, post-and follow-up of intervention).Information from the postintervention and follow-up questionnaires was synthesized into four indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of each intervention strategy. Of the 1,426 participants, 298 were involved in strategy A, 474 in strategy B, 491 in strategy C and 163 in the control group. At postintervention, the scores of the indicators in each strategy significantly outperformed those of the control group, with adjusted p < 0.05. At follow-up, the distribution of the indicator scores of each strategy was found to be not significantly different compared to those of the control group (p > 0.05). The results of this study suggest that a sustainable school-based public health intervention mediated by teachers is effective as direct training for families in improving knowledge about food choking injury prevention. Nevertheless, further improvements could be made to increase long-term information retention.