Anna Bertoni

Anna Bertoni
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore | UNICATT · Department of Psychology -Catholic University Centre for Family Studies and Research

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92
Publications
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Publications

Publications (92)
Article
Full-text available
Background: This study aimed to examine whether dyadic coping (DC) is associated with relationship satisfaction (RS) among couples facing cardiac diseases. Furthermore, the moderating role of both partners' anxiety and depression was tested. Methods: One hundred cardiac patients (81.5% men) and their partners (81.5% women) completed a self-report q...
Article
Background and Aims The start of peritoneal dialysis (PD) in patients affected by end stage renal disease (ESRD) may have a significant psychological impact. Aim of this study was to assess the most frequent reasons triggering the request of psychological referral in patients starting PD. Method A thematic analysis of the clinical diaries of the p...
Article
Full-text available
Objective The Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) has increasingly become a primary therapeutic option for longer-waiting heart transplant lists. Although survival rates are growing, the device requires complex home care. Therefore, the presence of a caregiver trained in the LVAD management is important for the success of the therapy. The LVAD le...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: To evaluate an enrichment training program targeted at home palliative care professionals in terms of its effects and participants' satisfaction. The program had 2 main aims: give voice to professionals' emotional fatigue and promote their personal resources. Methods: One hundred twenty-three home palliative care professionals partic...
Article
Full-text available
Objective The study aimed to test whether the presence of a partner was always beneficial to people with cardiac disease and how different types of partner behaviors promoted or hindered their activation and distress. Background Cardiac disease challenges not only patients but also their partners, whose support is not always effective. Method A c...
Article
Full-text available
Cardiac patients show alarming levels of nonadherence to medications. It is important to consider also patient activation levels. Furthermore, the partner could have a supporting role in these processes. The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of patient health self-efficacy (HSE) in the link between dyadic coping (DC) and two s...
Article
Un crescente numero di studi ha documentato l'impatto negativo delle misure restrittive di contenimento del contagio da COVID-19 sul benessere psicologico dei minori. Meno indagato è il ruolo dello stress genitoriale e il contributo dei diversi stressor sperimentati dai genitori sul malessere dei figli. Il presente studio cross-sectional intende es...
Article
Full-text available
Managing cardiac illness is not easy because it dramatically disrupts people’s daily life and both the patient and his/her spouse are at risk for experiencing distress, which, in turn, may affect the support provided by the partner as caregiver. The partner, in fact, is the main source of support, but his/her support may sometimes be inadequate. In...
Article
Full-text available
The new Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The sudden outbreak of this new virus and the measure of lockdown adopted to contain the epidemic have profoundly changed the lifestyles of the Italian population, with an impact on people’s quality of life and on their social relationships. I...
Article
Full-text available
The literature assumes that activating patients in the treatment is associated with positive health-related outcomes, such as clinical indicators in the normal range, high medication adherence, and low emergency department utilization. In the cardiac population, patient activation, that is the patient’s knowledge, skills, confidence, and behaviors...
Article
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Across the world, millions of couples get married each year. One of the strongest predictors of whether partners will remain in their relationship is their reported satisfaction. Marital satisfaction is commonly found to be a key predictor of both individual and relational well-being. Despite its importance in predicting relationship longevity, the...
Conference Paper
Il diffondersi del nuovo Coronavirus e le misure di lockdown adottate per contenere l’epidemia hanno modificato profondamente gli stili di vita degli italiani, con un impatto sulla qualità di vita e sulle relazioni sociali, in particolare sulle relazioni più intime quali la relazione di coppia. La lunga e obbligata permanenza a casa, potrebbe esser...
Article
Perceived superiority, the tendency to regard one’s own relationship as better than other people’s relationships, is a key relationship maintenance mechanism. Little is known about whether and how it changes during the transition to marriage, a pivotal moment in most couples’ life cycle. In a longitudinal study following 97 couples for three waves...
Article
Background and Aims The aim of this work is to explain the training to create a multidisciplinary team that in the future will activate the psychoeducational groups in nephrology. These groups will be support to patients and caregivers already in the waiting period from the intervention of the fistula at the beginning hemodialysis. Method The trai...
Article
Riassunto La malattia cardiaca ha un impatto notevole sul corpo, sulla psiche e sulle relazioni. La cura non dovrebbe ridursi solo ad esclusivo ripristino delle funzionalità dell'organo in una logica del tutto ortopedico-meccanicistica. Valorizzare il ruolo del partner nella costruzione di una rete di supporto, è centrale, in quanto persona più pro...
Article
Separations and divorces are nonnormative life events, which may have negative consequences on ex-partners’ social ties and social participation. The latter, however, may be protective resources in the post-separation adjustment. The present study focused on the role of volunteering and social ties for ex-partners’ well-being. In a sample of separa...
Article
Mate choice lies close to differential reproduction, the engine of evolution. Patterns of mate choice consequently have power to direct the course of evolution. Here we provide evidence suggesting one pattern of human mate choice—the tendency for mates to be similar in overall desirability—caused the evolution of a structure of correlations that we...
Poster
Full-text available
The patient engagement is negatively related to the partner’s hostility and the patient’s psychological distress. A call for a dyadic approach to cardiac illness was discussed.
Article
Full-text available
The present study was aimed at examining the role of explicit stress communication in the context of dyadic coping. The general aim of the present study was to test (a) whether explicit communication of daily stressful events predicted relationship satisfaction and (b) whether the perception of responsiveness in dyadic coping mediated the associati...
Article
Full-text available
Olfaction plays an important role in human social communication, including multiple domains in which people often rely on their sense of smell in the social context. The importance of the sense of smell and its role can however vary inter-individually and culturally. Despite the growing body of literature on differences in olfactory performance or...
Article
After separation or divorce, people generally experience a deterioration of health, not only in terms of physical well‐being but also in terms of emotional and social well‐being. In addition, when separated, individuals are parents as well and they are concerned with the well‐being of their children. The main task for separated parents is to mainta...
Chapter
The study presented in this chapter adopted a dyadic approach to analyze the role of perceived partner responses to negative events as well as to positive events occurring in partners’ everyday lives. The first aim was to analyze whether and how partners’ perceptions of the other’s typical, dispositional responses of dyadic coping and capitalizatio...
Book
The couple, from its formation and throughout its life cycle, is faced with several sources of stress, from daily stressors (minor stress; e.g., everyday family demands, neighborhood hassles, etc.) to critical transitions (major stress; e.g., the transition to parenthood, divorce, illness, etc.). Although in the past stress and coping were consider...
Article
Full-text available
Forms of committed relationships, including formal marriage arrangements between men and women, exist in almost every culture (Bell, 1997). Yet, similarly to many other psychological constructs (Henrich et al., 2010), marital satisfaction and its correlates have been investigated almost exclusively in Western countries (eg, Bradbury et al., 2000)....
Article
The traditional objective of parenting enrichment programs is to train parents’ abilities and specific competences, but less attention is paid to promoting participants’ reflection on their parental identity. These programs are generally delivered to groups of parents, though the group is rarely considered a specific tool to promote changes in part...
Article
In this themed issue of the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, the first four contributions provide knowledge on factors that can support or hinder positive parenting throughout children’s lives. In particular, the first article examined the spillover of work stressors on parenting behaviors and the role of spousal support as a...
Article
Full-text available
Currently we observe a gap between theory and practices of patient engagement. If both scholars and health practitioners do agree on the urgency to realize patient engagement, no shared guidelines exist so far to orient clinical practice. Despite a supportive policy context, progress to achieve greater patient engagement is patchy and slow and ofte...
Article
Full-text available
Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the...
Chapter
Una malattia cardiaca acuta e il processo di cura ad essa legato possono mettere a dura prova non solo il benessere del paziente colpito da un evento cardiaco, ma anche quello dei suoi familiari. In questa situazione critica la relazione di coppia può essere un elemento cardine sia nel promuovere che nell'ostacolare l'adattamento del paziente e la...
Chapter
Research on the engagement of patients and their partners and the literature on couple relationships have remained surprisingly separated. In response to this gap, the first aim of the chapter is to show the advantages of an integration of these two lines of research in the context of promoting engagement in patients and their partners. Particular...
Article
Full-text available
Due to an oversight, the name of the author "Ahmad M. Alghraibeh" was incorrectly spelled as "Ahmad M. Aghraibeh." The correct version is shown above. The authors apologize for this oversight. This error does not affect the scientific conclusions of the article in any way. The original article has been updated. Conflict of Interest Statement The au...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: Theories about how couples help each other to cope with stress, such as the systemic transactional model of dyadic coping, suggest that the cultural context in which couples live influences how their coping behavior affects their relationship satisfaction. In contrast to the theoretical assumptions, a recent meta-analysis provides eviden...
Chapter
As a distinct construct from both marital relationship and parent-child relationship, coparenting refers primarily to the extent to which parents experience joint responsibility for children’s well-being, are able to cooperate and coordinate in the decisions regarding their children, and trust each other. These aspects concern visible behaviors and...
Chapter
As a distinct construct from both marital relationship and parent-child relationship, coparenting refers primarily to the extent to which parents experience joint responsibility for children’s well-being, are able to cooperate and coordinate in the decisions regarding their children, and trust each other. These aspects concern visible behaviors and...
Chapter
Research on the engagement of patients and their partners and the literature on couple relationships have remained surprisingly separated. In response to this gap, the first aim of the chapter is to show the advantages of an integration of these two lines of research in the context of promoting engagement in patients and their partners. Particular...
Article
Full-text available
Sharing good news with the partner improves individual and relational well-being. While prior research has confirmed the benefits of such capitalization processes, knowledge on how the type of events that are shared, and the way they are shared, affects individuals and relationships is limited. We investigated diary data from 49 married couples to...
Article
This study examined the role that communication and coping skills play in moderating the relation between shared stressors and marital satisfaction in a community sample of 119 married, heterosexual couples in Italy. Hierarchical regression models examined communication and coping skills as potential moderators of the association between two indica...
Book
In the past years abundant research analyzed the social, relational, and individual aspects of separated parents to better understand the factors which may protect or make parents and children at risk, but still little research has shown an "integrated perspective" on separation. This study is an attempt to adopt an integrated perspective to improv...
Article
Full-text available
A few studies examine patients’ (and partners’) individual and relational functioning after an acute cardiac event and no research focuses on the individual and relational factors associated with the patient’s engagement in his/her disease management. The present study aimed at exploring these variables in male and female patients as well as their...
Article
Full-text available
Capitalization is the process through which people share good news with a significant other (e.g, a friend, the partner, a family member), which in turn responds in an “active” way in order to maximize the benefits deriving from the event. Previous daily experience studies found associations between capitalization responses and both intrapersonal a...
Article
Full-text available
The demand-withdraw interaction pattern is a pattern of conflict in which one-spouse pressures or blames while the other avoids or withdraws. Research has consistently shown that demand-withdraw behaviours are associated with couple dissatisfaction. However, longitudinal associations between the two constructs are less robust. Moreover, existing re...
Article
Full-text available
Applying the actor–partner interdependence model to 114 couples’ data, we examined the link between partners’ change in reported dyadic coping responses from 6 months before marriage to 12 months after marriage and change in the perceptions of the other’s dyadic coping responses, the role of these associations for partners’ change in relationship s...
Article
Full-text available
Attachment is associated with important relationship characteristics. Based on partners' scores of attachment dimensions anxiety and avoidance a cluster analysis with 304 couples was conducted and it was examined whether attachment-related couple types differ in self-reported relationship quality and dyadic coping. 3 couple types were identified: s...
Chapter
Parenting experiences children have lived within their families can play an important role for adult children‘s couple relationship, not only in terms of the actual behaviors and practices parents have engaged in during childhood and adolescence, but also in terms of the heritage of values, norms, and models adult children perceive that have settle...
Article
Full-text available
Attachment is associated with important relationship characteristics. Based on partners' scores of attachment dimensions anxiety and avoidance a cluster analysis with 304 couples was conducted and it was examined whether attachment-related couple types differ in self-reported relationship quality and dyadic coping. 3 couple types were identified: s...
Article
The study examined perceived similarity and understanding in dyadic coping among 197 young and 192 mature couples. Perceived similarity and understanding were computed through a dyad-centered approach. To separate 2 equally important components of dyadic congruence (i.e., unique and stereotypical similarity) stereotype adjusted and unadjusted score...
Chapter
Marital relationship is based on affective, relationship maintenance, intergenerational and social dimensions. These dimensions, the “pillars” of couple identity, may be studied in terms of passion, intimacy, commitment, individual representations of couple relationship, quality of relationship with the family of origin and trust. Research on coupl...
Article
The study examined perceived similarity and understanding in dyadic coping among 197 young and 192 mature couples. Perceived similarity and understanding were computed through a dyad-centered approach. To separate 2 equally important components of dyadic congruence (i.e., unique and stereotypical similarity) stereotype adjusted and unadjusted score...
Article
Full-text available
The current study extends prior research on perceptual congruence within couples by examining some variables of perceptual congruence in the context of dyadic coping. We examined each partner’s perceived similarity in dyadic coping, actual similarity in providing and receiving support in times of stress, and what we call the couple bond, that is, t...
Article
Full-text available
This article introduces the Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI; Bodenmann, 2008) and aims (a) to investigate the reliability and aspects of the validity of the Italian and French version of the original German DCI and (b) to replicate the factorial structure and reliabilities of the scale using a new Swiss German sample. Based on 216 Swiss, 378 Italian a...
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of the present study was to analyse marital functioning of satisfied couples and dissatisfied couples by comparing satisfied couples, dissatisfied couples, and couples in therapy. The sample was composed of totally 226 married couples (85 satisfied couples, 55 dissatisfied couples, 86 couples in therapy). Measures addressed topics such...
Article
The article presents a theoretical reflection based on the relational-symbolic approach developed by the Atheneum Centre for Family Studies and Research at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy. This approach identifies four fundamental areas in the relationship of couples: Affective, ethical, intergenerational, and social, an...
Article
The “Family Bond Promotion and Enrichment Programs” are a form of semi-structured preventive intervention that aims at several purposes: stimulating couples and parents to reflect on their family identity, improving skills, enriching the family social dimension. These Programs set their theoretical background within the relational-symbolic paradigm...
Article
Full-text available
Five hundred eighty divorced individuals from Germany, Italy, and Switzerland provided retrospective reports on the perceived similarities and differences between themselves and their former partner and on their own and their partner's attractiveness. Initiators and noninitiators were compared with regard to these different variables. Results demon...
Article
The study examined the role played by dyadic coping styles (both self-perceptions and perceptions of the other) and interpersonal perceptions of those styles in defining couple functioning. The sample is composed of 124 couples. Results confirmed the association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction. With regard to perceptual congruen...
Article
Full-text available
The aim of the present study was to analyze the factorial structure of the Dyadic Coping Questionnaire (FDCT-N) (Bodenmann, 1997, 2000) in an Italian sample. The FDCT-N measures partners’ tendency to engage in dyadic coping, that is the process through which partners cope together, as a couple, with daily stressors. It comprises partners’ stress co...
Article
The study examined the role played by dyadic coping styles (both self-perceptions and perceptions of the other) and interpersonal perceptions of those styles in defining couple functioning. The sample is composed of 124 couples. Results confirmed the association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction. With regard to perceptual congruen...
Article
Full-text available
Drawing upon earlier models of stress and divorce, this retrospective study investigates how divorced individuals appraise the role of stress in their divorce. Data from divorced individuals (N = 662) from Germany, Italy, and Switzerland suggest that low commitment and deficits in interpersonal competencies (communication, problem solving, coping)...
Article
Full-text available
A total of 711 divorced individuals from Germany, Italy and Switzerland provided retrospective reports on their perception of at-tractors and barriers to divorcing. This study combines the evaluation of macro-level variables (represented by three different countries) and micro-level variables (psychological variables) to better understand attractor...
Article
Full-text available
La ricerca, con un disegno longitudinale, ha l’obiettivo di esplorare l’influenza dell’immagine di sé e l’influenza della rappresentazione parentale sul rischio psicosociale in adolescenza. Ai soggetti sono state somministrate le scale di internalizing e di externalizing dello YSR (Achenbach e Edelbrock, 1987) e le scale dell’OSIQ relative all’imma...
Chapter
As a distinct construct from marital relationship and parent-child relationship, coparenting refers primarily to the extent to which parents experience joint responsibility for children's well-being, are able to cooperate and coordinate in the decisions regarding their children, and trust each other. These aspects concern visible behaviors and inte...