The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health has been extensively documented, while its possible positive impact on the individual, defined as Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), has been much less investigated. The present study examines the association between PTG and socio-demographic aspects, pre-pandemic psychological adjustment, stressors directly linked to COVID-19 and four psychological factors theoretically implicated in the change processes (core belief violation, meaning-making, vulnerability and mortality perception). During the second wave of the pandemic 680 medical patients completed an online survey on direct and indirect COVID-19 stressors, health and demographic information, post-traumatic growth, core belief violation, meaning-making capacity, feelings of vulnerability and perceptions of personal mortality. Violation of core beliefs, feelings of vulnerability and mortality, and pre-pandemic mental illness positively correlated with post-traumatic growth. Moreover, the diagnosis of COVID-19, stronger violation of core beliefs, greater meaning-making ability, and lower pre-existing mental illness predicted greater PTG. Finally, a moderating effect of meaning-making ability was found. The clinical implications were discussed.

The biopsychosocial paradigm is a model of care that has been proposed in order to improve the effectiveness of health care by promoting collaboration between different professions and disciplines. However, its application still faces several issues. A quantitative-qualitative survey was conducted on a sample of general practitioners (GPs) from Milan, Italy, to investigate their attitudes and beliefs regarding the role of the psychologist, the approach adopted to manage psychological diseases, and their experiences of collaboration with psychologists. The results show a partial view of the psychologist’s profession that limits the potential of integration between medicine and psychology in primary care. GPs recognized that many patients (66%) would often benefit from psychological intervention, but only in a few cases (9%) were these patients regularly referred to a psychologist. Furthermore, the referral represents an almost exclusive form of collaboration present in the opinions of GPs. Only 8% of GPs would consider the joint and integrated work of the psychologist and doctor useful within the primary health care setting. This vision of the role of psychologists among GPs represents a constraint in implementing a comprehensive primary health care approach, as advocated by the World Health Organization.

Key Words: primary care, biopsychosocial, community house SUMMARY Objectives: the contemporary complexity shows a lot of challenges to deal with different epistemologies together; this article suggests the creation of a new setting which GP and psychologist collaborate in the office without the referral. Methods: through a theoretical framework based on “territorialization”, the project is explained from its beginning to now, main focusing on co-presence through a brief clinical example. Results: when different professionals work together – and think about their practices – “over-skills” emerge, they belong to everyone but no one special. Conclusions: expanding this experience in the Community House too, it means institutionalize new practices and cutting the temporal asynchrony between scientific developments and the organization of services with the community. Autore per corrispondenza: claudia.zamin1@gmail.com

Free Primary Care for every citizen has been and remains a strength of some European health care systems and in particular of the Italian one. […]