The sense of agency concerns the experience of controlling our actions, referring both to superior and lower levels of psychological functioning that are also related to the physical dimension of agency. Diverse clinical conditions affect the awareness of being a bodily and agentive self.

The aim of this systematic review was to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the relationship between individual sense of agency and body perception.

PsycINFO, Psycharticle, Medline, Web of Science and Scopus were systematically searched for articles published until 19/10/2020.

After removing duplicates, a total of 2.556 records was screened. Fifteen articles were selected based on the inclusion criteria fixed for the systematic review.

In the last decades, this line of research seems to attract a growing number of studies.

However, these studies are affected by a great heterogeneity in the investigation of both constructs.

Body perception and sense agency were operationalized across research in diverse ways, making the evaluation of the relationship between them very difficult. In addition, there is a paucity of studies investigating the relationship between body perception and agency among individuals suffering from specific psychopathology or physical diseases. According to literature review, the main objective for future research is to develop more robust approaches to estimate the variability of these constructs such as their relationship.

No significant relationships.

The construct of nature relatedness (NR) has received a growing attention in the last decades. Past research suggest that NR may be involved in both positive (e.g. well-being) and negative (e.g. technological addictions) psychological outcome.

In addition, some evidences suggest that the construct may be tightly related to emotion regulation capacities. Despite Nisbet et al. (2009) recently developed a short measure to investigate the construct, this has not been still validated in the Italian context.

We performed three studies to validate the Italian version of the NRS-6 and to extend the nomological network of the construct. In the first study, we tested, throughout Structural Equation Modelling, the factorial structure of the instrument and gender invariance. In the second study, construct validity of the instrument was tested examining correlation pattern between NRS-6 scores and scores obtained on the Connection to Nature Scale, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and the Ways of Savoring Checklist. Finally, a longitudinal study tested the temporal stability of the measure and the predictive role of NR on technological addiction.

Data documented a good factorial structure of the instrument, satisfying invariance proprieties and a good test-retest reliability. Also, analyses supported the good convergent and predictive validity of the instrument.

The Italian version of the NRS-6 appears a reliable and useful tool that can be used in future research. Our studies extend the nomological network of the construct shedding light on the tight relationship of NR with the capacity to regulate positive emotions.

Cluster B personality disorders are characterized by a higher prevalence of suicidal ideation and behavior than others, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder is no different. Very intense feelings of shame, intolerable for the individual, are often found in patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and may have a role in suicidal behavior.

To offer preliminary empirical evidences concerning the relationship between narcissism, shame and suicide ideation.

We administered Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI), Test of Self Conscious Affects (TOSCA) and Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSI) to a sample of individuals with Suicide ideation (n= 65) and a sample of community participants (n=65).

Controlling for age and gender, in the merged sample we found that BSI scores correlated significantly with the vulnerable dimension of narcissism and with TOSCA Interpersonal Shame subscale. In the clinical sample, Interpersonal shame partially mediates the relationship between vulnerable narcissism and suicidal ideation.

Shame seems to play a key role in the relationship between the vulnerable facet of narcissism and suicidal ideation, although the profound mechanism by which it works remains to be understood. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed.

The Covid-19 outbreak has shown to negatively impact on mental health. Several anecdotical and theoretical evidences argued that lockdown measures would have increased subjective feelings of loneliness and addictions’ proneness.

In addition, preliminary data underlined a possible increase in the frequency of gaming and social media use. Increased loneliness levels are likely to account for increased gaming and social media addiction during the lockdown.

We conducted a longitudinal study administering to a sample of 154 Italian adults several self-report questionnaires at the beginning of lockdown (Time 1) and three days before the end of the lockdown (Time 2). We therefore assessed loneliness feelings, frequency of gaming and social media use as well as both gaming and social media addiction. Data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling.

We observed that loneliness levels longitudinally predicted both gaming and social media addiction also controlling for gaming and social media use at Time 1.

Increased feelings of loneliness, a well-known risk factor for gaming and social media addiction, may be a central variable heightening vulnerability to the onset or the maintenance of technological addiction during forced social isolation. Thus, future prevention interventions may want to target this issue.

Assessing mentalizing abilities is a complex issue. Only recently an instrument assessing mentalizing capacity as a whole, the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ), has been developed.

To reach the purpose of our study, we investigated the psychometric proprieties of the Italian version of the RFQ.

The study was conducted on a sample including a group of violent offenders and a group of community participants. All subjects fulfilled the RFQ, the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) and the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ).

The theoretical model was defined and analysed by using Partial Least Squares–Path Modelling with high-order construct definition. Data showed good psychometric proprieties of the Italian version of the RFQ. Also, specific patterns of correlations were identified between the RFQ subscales and both PID-5 and AQ scores. Offenders significantly differed from controls only in relation to one subscale of the RFQ.

Data supported the factorial structure of the RFQ found in the original validation study. Results also support the existence of a second-order variable, mentalizing, resulting from the convergence of hypomentalizing and hypermentalizing.

Suicide attempts and suicidal ideation are peculiar aspects of several cluster b disorders, including Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Similarly, difficulty in regulating negative affects can play a role in the relationship between narcissist features and suicidal ideation. To date, it is still unclear which facet of narcissism is more related to the desire to die and which other factors are involved in this relationship.

To offer preliminary empirical evidences concerning the relationship between narcissism, emotion regulation and suicide ideation.

We administered Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSI) to a sample of individuals with Suicide ideation (n= 68) and a sample of community participants (n=140).

Controlling for age and gender, we found that BSI scores correlated significantly with the vulnerable dimension of narcissism, but not with the grandiose one, and with all DERS dimensions. Nevertheless, emotion dysregulation moderates the relationship between vulnerable narcissism and suicidal ideation.

Suicide ideation seems to be deeply connected with the vulnerable dimension of pathological narcissism and the relationship between the constructs is partially mediated by emotion dysregulation. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed.

Although usually thought of as external environmental stressors, a significant heritable component has been reported for measures of stressful life events (SLEs) in twin studies.

We examined the variance in SLEs captured by common genetic variants from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 2578 individuals. Genome-wide complex trait analysis (GCTA) was used to estimate the phenotypic variance tagged by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We also performed a GWAS on the number of SLEs, and looked at correlations between siblings.

A significant proportion of variance in SLEs was captured by SNPs (30%, p = 0.04). When events were divided into those considered to be dependent or independent, an equal amount of variance was explained for both. This ‘heritability’ was in part confounded by personality measures of neuroticism and psychoticism. A GWAS for the total number of SLEs revealed one SNP that reached genome-wide significance (p = 4 × 10−8), although this association was not replicated in separate samples. Using available sibling data for 744 individuals, we also found a significant positive correlation of R2 = 0.08 in SLEs (p = 0.03).

These results provide independent validation from molecular data for the heritability of reporting environmental measures, and show that this heritability is in part due to both common variants and the confounding effect of personality.

Symptom dimensions have not yet been comprehensively tested as predictors of the substantial heterogeneity in outcomes of antidepressant treatment in major depressive disorder.

We tested nine symptom dimensions derived from a previously published factor analysis of depression rating scales as predictors of outcome in 811 adults with moderate to severe depression treated with flexibly dosed escitalopram or nortriptyline in Genome-based Therapeutic Drugs for Depression (GENDEP). The effects of symptom dimensions were tested in mixed-effect regression models that controlled for overall initial depression severity, age, sex and recruitment centre. Significant results were tested for replicability in 3637 adult out-patients with non-psychotic major depression treated with citalopram in level I of Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D).

The interest-activity symptom dimension (reflecting low interest, reduced activity, indecisiveness and lack of enjoyment) at baseline strongly predicted poor treatment outcome in GENDEP, irrespective of overall depression severity, antidepressant type and outcome measure used. The prediction of poor treatment outcome by the interest-activity dimension was robustly replicated in STAR*D, independent of a comprehensive list of baseline covariates.

Loss of interest, diminished activity and inability to make decisions predict poor outcome of antidepressant treatment even after adjustment for overall depression severity and other clinical covariates. The prominence of such symptoms may require additional treatment strategies and should be accounted for in future investigations of antidepressant response.

Response and remission defined by cut-off values on the last observed depression severity score are commonly used as outcome criteria in clinical trials, but ignore the time course of symptomatic change and may lead to inefficient analyses. We explore alternative categorization of outcome by naturally occurring trajectories of symptom change.

Growth mixture models were applied to repeated measurements of depression severity in 807 participants with major depression treated for 12 weeks with escitalopram or nortriptyline in the part-randomized Genome-based Therapeutic Drugs for Depression study. Latent trajectory classes were validated as outcomes in drug efficacy comparison and pharmacogenetic analyses.

The final two-piece growth mixture model categorized participants into a majority (75%) following a gradual improvement trajectory and the remainder following a trajectory with rapid initial improvement. The rapid improvement trajectory was over-represented among nortriptyline-treated participants and showed an antidepressant-specific pattern of pharmacogenetic associations. In contrast, conventional response and remission favoured escitalopram and produced chance results in pharmacogenetic analyses. Controlling for drop-out reduced drug differences on response and remission but did not affect latent trajectory results.

Latent trajectory mixture models capture heterogeneity in the development of clinical response after the initiation of antidepressants and provide an outcome that is distinct from traditional endpoint measures. It differentiates between antidepressants with different modes of action and is robust against bias due to differential discontinuation.

Adverse drug reactions are important determinants of non-adherence to antidepressant treatment but their assessment is complicated by overlap with depressive symptoms and lack of reliable self-report measures.

To evaluate a simple self-report measure and describe adverse reactions to antidepressants in a large sample.

The newly developed self-report Antidepressant Side-Effect Checklist and the psychiatrist-rated UKU Side Effect Rating Scale were repeatedly administered to 811 adult participants with depression in a part-randomised multicentre open-label study comparing escitalopram and nortriptyline.

There was good agreement between self-report and psychiatrists' ratings. Most complaints listed as adverse reactions in people with depression were more common when they were medication-free rather than during their treatment with antidepressants. Dry mouth (74%), constipation (33%) and weight gain (15%) were associated with nortriptyline treatment. Diarrhoea (9%), insomnia (36%) and yawning (16%) were more common during treatment with escitalopram. Problems with urination and drowsiness predicted discontinuation of nortriptyline. Diarrhoea and decreased appetite predicted discontinuation of escitalopram.

Adverse reactions to antidepressants can be reliably assessed by self-report. Attention to specific adverse reactions may improve adherence to antidepressant treatment.