Sabina La Grutta

• University of Palermo

Since the first development of psychology, drawing has been considered a useful tool to understand an individual's development and personality. The graphic method has been regarded as a valuable means of expressing not only personality traits but also a child's emotions and the emotional tone they "invest" in the surrounding environment. However, e...

Trait Emotional Intelligence (Trait EI) is considered a protective factor for adolescents’ psychological well-being and may play a critical role in mitigating the risk of developing eating disorders (EDs), particularly in the context of pervasive social media use. However, the psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship, such as the drivi...

Introduction: Social intelligence (SI) is a construct that has shown promising practical applications, but its use in research and applied settings has been limited by both definitional and operational problems. Overall, SI is currently defined as a set of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral abilities that individuals can use to interpret events,...

Objective The study aims to assess the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers’ work-related stress during the first wave of the pandemic in Italy. The main objective is to investigate the existence of a positive correlation between hopelessness and burnout, assuming that burnout may be a risk factor for the development of hopelessness, and to ana...

Deafness is a medical condition with important relational implications. This condition could affect well-being and self-esteem and cause social anxiety. Sign language is not only a simple mimic but can be considered as a different kind of communication that could be protective for those who have learned it. However, some people do not use sign lang...

Introduction In the last decades, many studies have emphasized emotion’s role in psycho-educational processes during childhood, such as scholastic integration. Emotional variables in childhood can be assessed through projective graphic techniques, as they allow children to use kinetic components of the draws to communicate emotions. Method 1.757 c...

Background: Cardiovascular diseases represent one of the most important problems for public health. Research indicates that elderly patients consider sexual satisfaction as a fundamental aspect of their quality of life and a better sexual function is related to higher general wellbeing. Objective: The main objective of this study was to investig...

In the last decades many studies have been emphasizing the role of emotion on psycho-educational processes during childhood, such as scholastic integration. Emotional variables in childhood can be assessed through projective graphic techniques, as they allow children to use kinetic components of the draws to communicate emotions. In the present stu...

During the pandemic, Italy has been among the most affected nations in terms of hospital overloaded and its healthcare workforce is still struggling to face all the challenges related to the pandemic. In this context, it has become necessary to understand the COVID-19 epidemic health consequences on Italian health professionals at the forefront (Gu...

The construct of Emotional Intelligence ( has been studied as a potential predictor of psychological wellbeing and social interaction during childhood Among the different possible EI formulations, Trait EI is conceptualized as a lower order personality construct defined as a constellation of self emotional perceptions and behavioral dispositions At...

Identifying asthma comorbidities in children is fundamental for improving disease management. We aimed to investigate the frequency of allergy-related comorbidities in children and adolescents with asthma, and to identify associated risk factors and disease burden. Between September 2015 and December 2018, 508 asthmatic patients (5–17 years) were c...

Emotional competence (EC) is a key component of children's psychological, cognitive, and social development, and it is a central element of learning. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing a psycho-educational group intervention aimed at improving children's emotional competence (EC), quality of integration...

This study contributes to the knowledge on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by examining a moderated mediation model in which the impact of job loss over quality of life (QoL) is mediated by hopelessness and moderated by trait emotional intelligence (trait EI). Data were collected from a large nationally representative Italian sample of adult w...

BACKGROUND: Bigorexia or muscle dysmorphia (MD) is a subtype of body dysmorphic disorder, and it is characterized by an excessive dissatisfaction with body size and muscularity. Orthorexia nervosa (ON) is an obsessive focus on healthy eating and emotional distress related to food choices that are perceived as unhealthy. MD and ON are considered two...

Multimorbidity is known to impair Quality of Life (QoL) in patients in a primary setting. Poor QoL is associated with higher dyspnea perception. How multimorbidity and dyspnea perception are related to QoL needs clarification. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the mediating role of dyspnea perception in the relationship between multimorbi...

The COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the world in the year 2020 has put a strain on our ability to cope with events and revolutionized our daily habits. On 9 March, Italy was forced to lockdown to prevent the spread of the infection, with measures including the mandatory closure of schools and nonessential activities, travel restrictions, and the obl...

Haptic perception (HP) is a perceptual modality requiring manual exploration to elaborate the physical characteristics of external stimuli through multisensory integrative cortical pathways. Cortical areas exploit processes of predictive coding that collect sensorial inputs to build and update internal perceptual models. Modifications to the intern...

An association between climatic conditions and asthma mortality has been widely assumed. However, it is unclear whether climatic variations have a fingerprint on asthma dynamics over long time intervals. The aim of this study is to detect a possible correlation between climatic indices, namely the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and Pacific Deca...

Introduction: Despite the extensive literature, the gender differences in eating disorders (ED) have been poorly investigated. Most of the studies, in fact, have been conducted so far on female samples, emphasizing the misleading belief that such disorders are of exclusive relevance of women. Aim: The review aim at highlighting as this preconcep...

Rationale: The global environment has been facing large changes during the last century, which can also affect respiratory health with increased asthma frequency worldwide. According to McCabe et al. (2014), spatial and temporal variances in multidecadal drought frequency over the contiguous US are attributable to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillat...

In the last few decades, particular attention has been paid to the role of personality specific traits that can affect the loss of health, i.e., Type D personality and Alexithymia. They have been conceptualized in a different period, this means that they are different both for their theoretical positions and their empirical studies. Some authors ha...

Aim: The purpose of this study is to explore through the Rorschach method the psychological and personological profile of the woman with obesity. Methods: The Rorschach test was administered to 10 women with body mass index of 41.86±9.9 kg/m2 at the clinic for obesity surgical treatment at the University Hospital "Paolo Giaccone" of Palermo. Re...

The relationship between social anxiety (SA) and cannabis use among adolescents and young adults is a highly debated topic. In this cross-sectional study, we tested whether cannabis use expectancies mediated the association between SA and cannabis use severity in a sample of 343 young adults (74.3% male) who used cannabis. They completed self-repor...

As a theoretical extension of other previous studies, this work represents an improvement of the notions about the relationship between adolescence and Mafia. The research has been aiming at exploring teenagers’ universe within specific social contexts where the presence of criminal organizations is significant, focusing the attention on the modali...

Transition to parenthood represents an important life event increasing vulnerability to psychological disorders. Postpartum depression and parenting distress are the most common psychological disturbances and a growing scientific evidence suggests that both mothers and fathers are involved in this developmental crisis. This paper aims to explore ma...

Background: Self-image is the subjective perception about one’s own self, body, mental functioning, social attitudes, and adjustment in different aspects of life. Research has linked negative self-image with a number of problem behaviors and psychiatric symptoms in adolescence; however, studies of the relationship between self-image and anxiety dis...

"Defense Mechanisms Inventory (DMI) (Gleser, Ilhievich,1969; Gleser, Ilhievich,1986) è un questionario semiproiettivo che richiede al soggetto di immedesimarsi in dieci brevi storie semistrutturate e misura la presenza e l’intensità di cinque cluster difensivi con i relativi sfondi emozionali. Il reattivo è stato ideato alla fine degli anni sessant...

As a theoretical extension of other previous studies, this work represents an improvement of the notions about the relationship between adolescence and Mafia. The research has been aiming at exploring teenagers’ universe within specific social contexts where the presence of criminal organizations is significant, focusing the attention on the modali...

Respiratory allergic symptoms impact on social life and school activities, influencing the patient's mood states. We evaluated the relationships between allergic respiratory diseases and depressive/anxious mood in a large sample of Italian middle school students, using the partial directed acyclic graph (P-DAG). We studied 1283 subjects aged 10-13....

Respiratory allergic symptoms impact on social life and school activities, influencing the patient's mood states. We evaluated the relationships between allergic respiratory diseases and depressive/anxious mood in a large sample of Italian middle school students, using the partial directed acyclic graph (P-DAG). We studied 1283 subjects aged 10-13....

This study was done to evaluate the psychological state and anxiety of patients undergoing computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA), and assess their acceptance and satisfaction compared to invasive conventional coronary angiography (CCA). A total of 442 consecutive patients (282 male; mean age 57.7 ± 9.5 years) who underwent CTCA for suspec...

Coeliac disease (CD) is a chronic disease which could stress patients and their family. Although, poor attention has been paid to the quality of life in CD children and to the functioning of families with CD children. The study aims to evaluate the parenting perception of the CD impact and the parenting distress level. A group of 74 parents of CD c...

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Available online xxxx During the last decades research all over the world has highlighted the deleterious effects of outdoor and indoor pollution on respiratory health of adults and children. The World Health Organization (WHO) "Air quality guidelines for Europe" played a fundamental role in providing informati...

TGF-beta-targeting structural and inflammatory cells has been implicated in the mechanisms leading to the inflammatory and restructuring processes in asthma, suggesting an impact of TGF-beta1 signaling on the development and persistency of this disease. We investigated the potential early involvement of TGF-beta1 activity in the immunological and m...

Aim: The aim of this research is to explore the psychical functioning in bipolar I or bipolar II disorder people through the analysis and comparison of their thought styles and defense patterns. Methods: 29 bipolar I and bipolar II people afferent to Palermo University Policlinical Psychriatic Hospital Department were selected during the whole 2...

Starting from their work as psychotherapists and by means of some clinical fragments which refer to a group of teenagers of a neighbourhood at risk in Palermo, the Authoresses analyze the Mafia dimension not limiting it to a criminal behaviour only. They rather decline it along some signifiers: non identity and mafia group which colonizes and subju...

Sturge-Weber-Krabe syndrome (SWS), also known as encephalotrigeminalangiomatosis and named the forthfacomatosis, recall the names of the authors who first describedit in its basic clinical, radiological andanatomopathological aspects. We report here 14 cases of Sturge-Weber disease. In 6 of these, despite what had been previously described in liter...

Sturge-Weber-Krabe syndrome (SWS), also known as encephalotrigeminalangiomatosis and named the forthfacomatosis , recall the names of the authors who first describedit in its basic clinical, radiological andanatomopathological aspects. We report here 14 cases of Sturge-Weber disease. In 6 of these, despite what had been previously described in lite...

Il tema della IAQ nelle scuole assume un ruolo di rilievo nella politica sanitaria Italiana, che segue l'approccio olistico della "salute in tutte le politiche”. Per concretizzare questa nuova visione di un approccio globale nella lotta alle malattie croniche, il Ministero della Salute nel 2009 è entrato a far parte della GARD internazionale (Inter...

According to the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) Report, asthma is a worldwide problem, with an estimated 300 million affected individuals and 250,000 annual deaths. There is also good evidence that asthma prevalence, which in some age-groups of some countries seems to have now reached a plateau, has been increasing in many industrialized count...

We conducted a large observational study in 193 children and adolescents with allergic rhinitis due to grass or tree pollens to evaluate the safety and tolerability of an ultrarush high-dose sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) regimen reaching a maintenance dose of 300 index of reactivity within 90 minutes. Children and adolescents aged 5 to 17 years w...

The SIDRIA project (Italian Studies on Respiratory Disorders in Children and the Environment) is a large multicentre, population-based survey within the ISAAC study (International Study on Asthma and Allergies in Childhood), aimed at estimating the prevalence of respiratory and allergic disorders in Italian children and adolescents, and at investig...

To report on the relation between home mould and/or dampness exposure and respiratory disorders in a large sample of children and adolescents in Italy, accounting for age at time of exposure. 20,016 children (mean age 7 years) and 13,266 adolescents (mean age 13 years) completed questionnaires on indoor exposures and respiratory symptoms/diseases....

Programmed cell death (or apoptosis) is a physiological process essential to the normal development and homeostatic maintenance of the immune system. The Fas/Apo-1 receptor plays a crucial role in the regulation of apoptosis, as demonstrated by lymphoproliferation in MRL-lpr/lpr mice and by the recently described autoimmune lymphoproliferative synd...

Allergy to latex has become an increasing and clinically important problem during last years. Natural rubber latex (NRL) allergy has been acknowledged as a major occupation problem among health-care workers. More recently, NRL allergy also occurs in children with spina bifida and in atopic children. Even patients allergic to various fruits, such as...

A retrospective analysis of ocular infiltration by leukemic cells (Leukemic Ophthalmopathy) is reported. From January, 1970 to December, 1982, thirty cases (1.5% of leukemic children observed) were found in 12 Italian Pediatric Centers: four ANLL and twenty-six ALL; 17 were males and 13 females; age ranged from 1-15 years at the time of ophthalmopa...