This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric proprieties of the Italian version of the Patient- Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS) in a large sample (N = 854) of Italian second-year medical students from six consecutive academic years. The 18 items of the PPOS were translated into Italian using a standard translation/back- translation process. The construct validity of the PPOS was established with Confirmatory Factor Analyses. Multi-group measurement invariance between males and females was also performed. Finally, convergent validity and Raykov’s composite reliability were used as indicators of PPOS internal consistency. Results supported the two original factors labeled Caring and Sharing, but the validated Italian version of the PPOS includes 8 items out of the 18 of the original questionnaire. The PPOS-8-IT resulted in a reliable and valid self-report measure of patient-centeredness among Italian undergraduate medical students. The PPOS-8-IT might be used for assessing and monitoring the attitudes of Italian medical students towards the doctor-patient relationship for educational, evaluative, and research purposes.

The present Covid-19 outbreak is an international public health emergency that has imposed to people strict mobility/activity restrictions and changes in the hygiene habits, essential to limit/delay virus diffusion. Early identification of and intervention on contamination obsessive fear, a core symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), are always of paramount importance, and in critical periods, such as the present one, should be imperative. OCD is generally associated with a delay in the correct diagnosis and first professional management of several years after symptom onset. A longer duration of untreated illness is in turn associated with a worst prognosis, higher treatment resistance and other clinical complications, as well as increased societal costs. It seems to be crucial to promote research efforts devoted to the early identification of subgroups at risk of developing clinically relevant contamination symptoms, to understand more deeply the vulnerability and protective mechanisms involved in this pathophysiological process in order to plan evidence-based early intervention strategies.

Internet is the primary source of health-related information for adolescents and young adults and it is possible to find online several groups, forums or communities of teenagers and young adults that offer peer help. A problematic aspect related to this kind of help is its evaluation, not only in term of outcome but even in term of process. Using a mixed methodology (quantitative and qualitative) this study tries to improve our understanding of dynamics of online help among teenagers, by evaluating which are the principal users’ problems and how is the quality of support offered by peers. 82 chats between adolescents in an online peer help service, called Youngle, are analyzed in term of quality of offered help. Adolescents seek online help most of all for relational problems and the overall quality of peer- help is high. However, some aspects related to conversational ability require improvement interventions. For example, peers seem to use more frequently negative communication patterns when talk about sexuality. Results suggest the utility of peer help for generic topics that concern adolescence, such as the relational ones, but even the need to provide specialized help for specific issues that appear to be extremely complex for adolescents, such as sexuality.

Many studies have shown that applicant attractiveness has a strong effect on hiring assessments and on hiring decisions. However, these studies have rarely simultaneously measured the applicant’s aptitude and the job’s sex- type in the context of managerial jobs. This study investigated the role of stereotypes (applicant’s physical attractiveness and gender) and of applicant’s aptitude on hiring decisions. Professional recruiters (N = 58) rated eight hypothetical applicants based on their resume, which was varied according to a 2×2×2 design including three within-participants variables (gender × attractiveness × high/moderate aptitude) and two between-participants variable (male/female job sex-type; male/female recruiter). Recruiters used 9 scales to measure the applicant’s hirability, desirability and utility. The analyses revealed significant main effects of applicant attractiveness and general mental abilities (GMA). For the male sex-typed managerial job, men received higher ratings than women, and the opposite held for the female sex-typed managerial job.

Volunteering has beneficial effects both for individuals, as it increases wellbeing and life satisfaction, and for communities. It is relevant, however, to understand the reasons for beginning this prosocial behaviour and persisting in it. This study explores how core self-conceptions such as general self-efficacy and self-esteem may have a role as antecedents of volunteer involvement through the mediation of different motives for volunteering. Volunteers (n = 138, 69F) and non-volunteers (n = 112, 59F) from the same community, matched for gender and age, were compared on self-esteem, self-efficacy, motives, volunteer involvement, life satisfaction. A path structural model was used to investigate the hypothesized mediations. Main findings showed that self-efficacy was higher among volunteers and that women who volunteered had higher self-esteem than women who did not. Self-esteem had a negative association with the involvement of volunteers mediated by a career motive, and with future intention mediated by self-enhancement. Self-efficacy played a role in encouraging people to consider engaging in volunteering with the mediation of the values motive in non-volunteers and with the mediation of the social motive in volunteers, together with motivations linked to using one’s own competences in both subsamples. Life satisfaction was positively associated with the time spent volunteering each week, but not with persistence in the service and with self-esteem. Implications may be relevant to increasing volunteer involvement.