Action observation as a useful approach for enhancing recovery of verb production: new evidence from aphasia.

BACKGROUNDS: Evidence exists that the observation of actions performed by others enhance word retrieval and can be used in aphasia rehabilitation to treat naming impairments. AIM: The aim of the present study was to assess to what extent action observation treatment may improve verb retrieval in chronic aphasics. DESIGN: This was an observational study. SETTING: Patients were recruited from the Neurorehabilitation Centre of Ancona Hospital. POPULATION: Six aphasic patients underwent an intensive language training to improve verb naming. METHODS: Language evaluation was carried out before and after the treatment. A rehabilitation therapy based on observation of actions was administered daily to each patient for two consecutive weeks. Four different rehabilitation procedures were adopted: 1) "observation of action performed by the examiner"; 2) "observation and then execution of action"; 3) "observation of videoclips of actions"; and, as a control condition; 4) "observation of action and execution of meaningless movement". RESULTS: In four participants, a significant improvement in verb retrieval was found for the three experimental procedures (χ² (3)=75.212, P<0.0001), with respect to the control condition. No significant improvement was observed in the two patients with severe deficits in verb semantics (χ² (3)=0.592, P=0.892). CONCLUSIONS: Action observation therapy may become a useful intervention strategy to promote verb retrieval in aphasic patients. CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT: The observation of videoclips of actions may be an efficacious alternative approach to traditional rehabilitation programs for lexical deficits. This finding endorses the planning of innovative low-cost interventions in language rehabilitation.

Defining hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) structure by confirmatory factor analysis: a contribution to validation for oncological settings.

BACKGROUND: Despite its popularity, not a definitive word has yet been said about the latent structure of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The present work is a contribution to this issue: statistically identifying the best tool structure helps in understanding which constructs the tool actually detects. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Five hundred and twelve Italian consecutive hospitalized cancer patients completed the HADS together with a form for the collection of personal and clinical data. Two confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were carried out to test the validity of both two- and one-factor models, whereas qualitative and quantitative (i.e. Akaike information criterion) indices were used to assess which model among them would fit better with the observed data. Finally, two multigroup CFAs were carried out to test the factorial invariance across gender and disease phase (diagnostic, therapeutic) of the best-fitting model. RESULTS: Although both considered models provide a good fit to the observed data, the two-factor model is more adequate; it is invariant across gender and disease phase. CONCLUSIONS: The present study gives evidence for using HADS to detect anxious and depressive states separately as originally suggested by its authors. Given that this work involved only Italian cancer inpatients, replications in different cultural/national contexts are recommended.

Anxiety and stress in mothers and fathers in the 24 h after their child's surgery.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Surgery in a paediatric setting stresses children and their parents. Previous studies have focused on children and the preoperative period; however, the 24 h after child surgery are highly stressful for parents as their child is still physically recovering and physician-parent communication is vital. The aims of this study are to investigate the impact of three levels of severity of paediatric surgery on mothers' and fathers' anxiety and stress and to identify factors that contribute to parental anxiety and acute stress symptoms in the first 24 h after child surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 154 parents (91 mothers, 63 fathers) of children who had just undergone elective surgery for a major intervention (n = 41), minor intervention (n = 64) or day surgery (n = 49) completed questionnaires aimed at assessing levels of state anxiety and acute stress symptoms. Social network, socio-economic status and parental health locus of control were evaluated as contributors. RESULTS: Parents reported high levels of state anxiety (26% had scores on the state scale 2 standard deviations above the norm) and acute stress symptoms (28% in at least one of the four acute stress disorder symptom categories). Child's type of surgery is related to parental anxiety [F(2,134) = 38.12, P = 0.0001, eta(2) = 0.175] and acute stress symptoms [F(2,133) = 31.21, P = 0.0001, eta(2) = 0.133]. Parental state anxiety was predicted by parent's gender, trait anxiety and health external locus of control. Parent's number of acute stress symptoms was predicted by parental trait anxiety, health external locus of control, parent's level of education and the number of social contacts. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to take into consideration parental anxiety and distress in the 24 h after child surgery. Parental well-being is related to several characteristics including the severity of child surgery; these aspects should be taken into consideration when interacting with parents in the aftermath of their child's surgery.

[New questionnaire to evaluate psychological treatment effects]. / Proposta di un nuovo strumento per la verifica dell'efficacia nella pratica dei trattomenti psicologici e psicoteropeutici.

A new questionnaire named CBA-VE (Cognitive Behavioral Assessment for outcome evaluation) was developed to evaluate psychological treatment intervention--especially for counseling and psychotherapy. The questionnaire has 80 items and a 5 point Likert-like scale ranging from 1 = nothing to 5 = a lot. The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and the reliability of the five constructs of the questionnaire both in normal and clinical subjects. Participants. Two samples were analyzed: a "Normal" group composed of 250 normal adults plus 51 university students; and a "Clinical" group including 261 adults undergoing psychotherapy and psychological counseling provided by the public health service. The questionnaire includes five scales: three of them are related to important psychological aspects (anxiety, depression, and psychological distress); the remaining two are measurements of psychological wellbeing and self-perception of a positive change. The questionnaire has excellent psychometric characteristics, both for normal and clinical subjects. We observed a good reliability, good internal consistency, and an excellent structural validity for the five interrelated dimensions. The normalized factorial loadings are consistent, significant (from around 0.6 up), and similar in both the groups. The so-called Clinical group showed higher scores in anxiety, depression, and psychological distress and smaller scores in wellbeing and change perception. This is coherent with what the authors assumed a priori.

Impact of an HPV diagnosis on the quality of life in young women.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of the communication of an HPV diagnosis on the cognitive-behavioural aspect, emotional experiences, psychic-physical well-being, and psychosexual sphere in young women between the ages of 20 and 45. METHOD: During the period between February 2006 and March 2007, at the U.O. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the ULSS 13 of Mirano (VE), we distributed three self-evaluating questionnaires (the CBA-20, the SAT-P, and the BISF-W) to 36 women who had been diagnosed with an HPV infection and 36 women who had never been diagnosed with HPV. RESULTS: 36% of the experimental group reacted to the diagnosis with fear and 29% reacted with anxiety, while in only 3% of the cases did the women react with anger. Significant differences emerged in two samples regarding state anxiety and obsessive and compulsive aspects, while there were no significant differences between the two groups regarding the subjective satisfaction with life quality and sexual function. A significant positive correlation was found between the sum of anxiety and fear expressed at the time of the diagnosis and the trait anxiety reported in the Cognitive Behavioural Assessment 2.0. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that the prevalent emotions felt at the time of the diagnosis are fear and anxiety. The persons who were diagnosed with an HPV infection resulted as having higher levels of trait anxiety, obsessions, compulsions, and above all, behaviours and worries related to hygiene and improbable infections.