[Organizational wellbeing and psychosocial risk factors in a sample of Italian Public Administration work environments]. / Benessere organizzativo e rischi psicosociali in un campione di amministrazioni pubbliche italiane.

BACKGROUND: It has been recognized both by the scientific community and within the framework of social policies in Europe that the physical and psychosocial working environments pose potential risks for workers and organizational wellbeing. In particular psychosocial risks concern aspects of the design and management of work and its social and organizational contexts which have the potential for causing psychological or physical problems. OBJECTIVES: This article examines the psychosocial risk factors of several types of Italian Public Administration offices (municipal, provincial, regional, central government, university, police headquarters, chamber of commerce, etc.) with the aim of obtaining a picture of the most problematic risk factors for each type. METHODS: The participants of this survey consisted of about 23,500 employees of different types of Public Administration offices. The Multidimensional Organizational Health Questionnaire (MOHQ, 3) was used to collect the data. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Results from ANOVA indicated that perceptions of fairness and job demands were the most problematic risk factors. Perception of safety at work was another problematic risk factor in specific types of work. The results revealed a high perception of stress in all workers over the entire range of the public administration offices studied.

[Operating theatre and medical ward nurses: two different ways of perceiving one's organizational health]. / Infermieri di camera operatoria e infermieri di medicina generale: la diversa percezione della propria salute organizzativa.

BACKGROUND: It is widely recognized that the working environment is crucial in the genesis of stress and other disorders that may affect nurses' health. The specific job context and the tasks performed by nurses in different clinical settings can be positive or negative predictors of organizational health. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to describe and compare organizational health among nurses working in operating theaters and medical wards. METHODS: For the study 670 nurses from six university hospitals in Italy were asked to participate and a total of 542 nurses constituted the final sample. The Nursing Organizational Health Questionnaire was used to collect the data and was administered from January to March 2010. A descriptive/comparative design was used. CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that nurses assigned to medical wards perceived their working environment as healthy and were significantly more satisfied and had less psychosomatic complaints than their colleagues working in operating theaters.

[Perception of organizational climate and burnout amongst health care workers: the role of alexithymia as a moderator]. / Percezione di clima organizzativo e burnout in ambito sanitario: il ruolo moderatore dell'alessitimia.

This paper reports a study on 238 health care workers from an hospital in central Italy. We examined: 1) how some dimensions regarding perceived quality of the organizational and relational climate (social warmth and quality of working life both in the ward and in the organization) influence various indicators of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment); 2) if it was possible to improve the previous regressive models by including the personality construct, alexithymia. Controlling for age and gender, results of the hierarchical regression showed significant two-way interactions between organizational/relational climate and alexithymia in predicting emotional exhaustion (p = .005 for both the ward and the organization) and personal fulfillment (for ward, p = .020; for perceived relational climate, p = .037). Depersonalization was accounted by the main effect of alexithymia (p = .000). In conclusion, results demonstrate the need to include the alexithymia construct in models predicting the various dimensions of burnout.

Pneumococcal septic arthritis of the shoulder. Case report and literature review.

Septic arthritis due to Streptococcus Pneumoniae appears to be relatively uncommon. Single- or clustered-case histories constitute the majority of reports on pneumococcal septic arthritis. A 70-year-old man presented with a 7-day history of pain, erythema and swelling of the left shoulder. Physical examination of the left shoulder revealed a warm, swollen, erythematous, and markedly tender to light palpation. The patient was unable to elevate his arm more than 30 degrees without pain. Arthrocentesis performed on admission produced 30 cc of grossly purulent fluid whose culture demonstrated S. Pneumoniae. The septic arthritis was treated with intravenous vancomycin and imipenem. The antibiotics were substituted when the sensitivities were known with oral ciprofloxacin and rifampycin to complete 8 weeks' total treatment. On follow-up examination 1 year later, the patient has remained afebrile and asymptomatic without evidence of increasing joint effusion or acute joint inflammation. Pneumococcal arthritis is classically described as a painful monoarticular arthritis complicating an active pneumococcal infection, generally a primary pulmonary infection. Pneumococcal arthritis appears to be predominantly a disease affecting the elderly. Clinical presentation ranges from septicemia to indolent infection with few systemic symptoms. With adequate antibiotic therapy and aspiration or drainage of the joint, the prognosis for return of normal joint function appears to be excellent. Although pneumococcal organisms are not likely causes, this bacteria should certainly be considered as a possible cause of arthritis or prosthetic infection.

Allelic loss on chromosome 6Q in primary prostate cancer.

Molecular genetic analyses of human prostate cancer (CaP) has revealed frequent loss of specific chromosome regions suggesting the presence of putative tumor suppressor gene(s) (TSG) on these chromosome loci whose inactivation may play a role in prostate tumorigenesis. To understand the role of 6q alterations in CaP, we have undertaken a comprehensive analysis of proximal 6q. Genomic DNA from tumor and normal prostate tissues from radical prostatectomy specimens of 38 patients were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for 13 polymorphic microsatellite loci on 6q. Allelic losses of 1 or more polymorphic loci were detected in 11 of 38 patients (29%). Six of 11 tumors showing any 6q deletion were found to have allelic losses at D6S1056 and D6S300 loci. Our results revealed a 1.5 megabase interval between D6S1056 and D6S300 at 6q16.3-21 as the minimal region of deletion, which may contain the putative TSG involved in prostate tumorigenesis. One of the tumor samples demonstrated homozygous deletion at a distal location D6S314 (6q23-24), suggesting another locus potentially associated with CaP. Although the relationship of 6q loss of heterozygosity (LOH) with various clinico-pathologic variables, i.e., cancer recurrence or pathologic stage, did not reveal a statistically significant association, the risk for 6q LOH to non-organ confined (pT3) disease was 5-fold higher than for organ confined disease.

Gold toning improves the visualization of nucleolar organizer regions in paraffin embedded tissues.

A modification of the silver colloid technique for staining nucleoar organizer regions in paraffin embedded tissues is described. This modification involves the application of a gold toning step with subsequent gold reduction, if necessary, following incubation of sections in the standard silver colloid solution. Silver stained nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs) in toned sections are more sharply delineated when compared to untoned controls. In high grade tumors the addition of the toning step results in significantly higher AgNOR counts due to the ability to discriminate more easily individual AgNORs in argyrophilic aggregates within the nucleus. It is recommended, because of enhanced visualization, that this modification of the silver colloid technique be used in studies involving quantification of AgNORs in tissue sections.

Correlation of nucleolar organizer regions and glandular dysplasia of the stomach and esophagus.

Forty-seven biopsies of gastric mucosa and Barrett esophagus from 32 patients were studied with the argyrophilic nucleolar organizer region method. Twenty-two biopsies were gastric and 25 esophageal. Four showed normal noninflamed mucosa, 14 reactive glandular changes, eight intestinal metaplasia without dysplasia, ten low grade dysplasia with intestinal metaplasia, and 11 high grade dysplasia. The mean number of nucleolar organizer regions was 14.9 for high grade dysplasia, 10.9 for low grade dysplasia, 8.5 for intestinal metaplasia without dysplasia, 6.7 for reactive changes, and 3.9 for normal mucosa. The difference between high grade dysplasia and the other groups was significant (P = 0.004). However, the difference between high and low grade dysplasia was not significant (P = 0.06), and there was an overlap between reactive and high grade dysplastic lesions. We conclude that although nucleolar organizer counts correlate with the degree of dysplasia, the technique is of limited practical use.

Nucleolar organizer regions in seminoma and intratubular malignant germ cells.

Nucleolar organizer regions (NORs), as demonstrated by a silver-colloid staining technique, have been counted in 71 primary testicular seminomas (typical seminoma (TS) 31, high mitotic index seminoma (HMIS) 24, and spermatocytic seminoma (SS) 16) and ten seminomas metastatic to retroperitoneal lymph nodes. Mean NOR counts were 14.36 for TS; 17.66 for HMIS; 10.89 for SS; and 17.70 for metastatic seminoma. Analysis of data using Student's unpaired t-test showed a significant difference between the NOR counts obtained from TS, HMIS, and SS. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant difference between NOR counts in metastatic seminoma when compared with TS and SS but not HMIS. The association between tumor proliferation rates and intranuclear NOR numbers is discussed. In addition to a numerical variation, the NOR distribution throughout the nucleus was noted to be different in SS when compared with the other varieties of seminoma studied. The pattern observed had some features similar to those seen in cells of the spermatogenic series. The NOR technique was also applied to 19 cases of intratubular malignant germ cells (ITMGC). It was shown that these malignant cells were easily identified using this staining method and that the NOR distribution was similar to that seen in TS and HMIS. The mean NOR count in ITMGC was 16.41. This was significantly different from that of TS but not HMIS.