The objective is to highlight the clinical and social outcomes among adults who suffered from Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in their childhood/adolescence. PubMed, PsycINFO, and Scopus databases were searched for prospective studies published during the last 5 years addressing patients with ADHD in childhood/adolescence followed-up to adulthood. We also included studies published before 2015 reported in other reviews with similar outcomes. Thousand four-hundred and eighty-five studies were identified, but only 39 were included for qualitative analysis and 27 for quantitative analysis. Overall, we found that ADHD persisted into adulthood with a mean rate of 43% and was mainly associated with both substance/alcohol use disorders and antisocial behavior and, less frequently, with anxiety and depressive disorders. The prevalence of persistent ADHD in adulthood reported by studies published after 2011 (55%) was higher than that reported by studies published previously from 1985 to 2011 (34%), suggesting a greater focus on ADHD in recent years. Our results highlight that ADHD can be considered not only a neurodevelopmental disorder, but also a persistent and complex condition, with detrimental consequences for quality of life in adulthood.

Dignity is related to a patient’s respect, privacy, information and autonomy. Maintaining dignity is defined as ethical goal of care. Although the importance of dignity has been widely recognized, there is limited research that investigates if dignity is really maintained in clinical practice and few studies have been conducted in acute hospital settings with adults across the age range. The aim of the study was to explore inpatients’ perception of dignity in an hospital setting. This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in 10 medical and surgical wards of a General Hospital in Modena (Italy). We collected a purposive sample of 100 patients by selecting 10 participants from each ward who met following criteria: hospitalized for more than three days, at least 18 years old, not mentally ill, willing to participate and able to speak Italian. We developed a 15-item anonymous questionnaire divided into three sections: “physical privacy”, “information and autonomy”, “nurse-patients respectful interaction”. The percentages of positive (preserved dignity perception) were more frequent than negative (not preserved dignity perception) and no answers with a statistically significantly difference among the three sections (Pearson chi2 = 150.41, p < 0.0001). The frequency of positive or negative answers was statistically significantly related to the preservation of dignity according to the following questions (p < 0.005, multivariate logistic regression): “privacy to use the bathroom” and “respectful interaction”, as protective factors and “maintaining of body privacy”, “involvement in the care process”, “correct communication” as risk factors. Dignity was quite but not completely maintained according to the standards expected by patients. According to patients’ views, privacy of the body during medical procedures and respectful nurse-patient interactions were preserved more than information and verbal communication. Listening to patients’ views on the specific factors they consider useful to maintaining their dignity can help in this process. Recognizing and focusing on these factors will help professionals to establish practical measures for preserving and promoting patients' dignity and providing more dignified care. Dignity should be extensively and systematically pursued as other important clinical goals.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to recognize and manage one's own and others' emotions, empathy is the ability to understand how others feel, whereas alexithymia represents the difficulty in feeling and verbally expressing emotions. Emotional competences are important requirements for positive outcomes in nursing profession. To analyze EI, empathy and alexithymia in nursing students. We conducted a cross-sectional survey in a sample of 237 students (53 males, 184 females), attending both the 1st and 3rd year of the University Nursing Course in Modena. We administered three Italian validated scales: Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT), Jefferson Scale of Empathy - Health Professions Student (JSE-HPS), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Data were statistically analyzed. Statistically significant differences were found between the 1st and 3rd year students at SSEIT (t=-0.6, p=0.52), JSE-HPS (t=-3.2, p=0.0016) and TAS-20 scores (t=-3.54, p=0.0005). Among 3rd year students, females obtained significantly different scores from those of males at SSEIT (t=2.8, p=0.006). All three scales reported a Cronbach's alpha >0.80. SSEIT correlated positively with JSE-HPS (Spearman's rho=0.15, p=0.02) and negatively with TAS-20 (Spearman's rho=-0.18, p=0.006). Our study highlighted a good level of emotional skills among students at the beginning of nursing training, further increased by the last year of the course, suggesting that emotional competences can be learned, and confirmed that empathy, but not alexithymia, is a dimension of EI.

Eating disorders (EDs) are common among children and adolescents and are characterized by excessive concerns for physical appearance, distorted body image, and fear of gaining weight. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the follow-up of EDs from adolescence to adulthood, analyzing persistence, relapses, and associated comorbidities. We searched scientific articles in PubMed, PsycInfo, Scopus, and Embase through two research strings, one for quantitative outcomes (recovery/persistence, relapse, and remission) and one for the other outcomes (psychiatric and medical comorbidities, substance use, and social–relational complications). From a total of 8043 retrieved articles, we selected 503 papers after exclusion of duplicates and title/abstract screening. After a full-text evaluation, we included 16 studies eligible for this review. We performed a meta-analysis describing the quantitative results, and we created a narrative synthesis for the qualitative outcomes. Results: Our results confirm that EDs can persist in early adulthood in 40.7% of cases with a relapse percentage of 24.5%. Individuals with an ED more frequently present with an empathy deficit and comorbid anxiety and depressive disorders. EDs are chronic and complex disorders, more frequent in females. In most cases, EDs reduce the autonomy of individuals who present many difficulties in affirming their independence from parental family.

Background: Empathy is a relevant clinical competence for nursing students. Involvement of expert patients in nursing education could help students develop their innate capacity to empathize. Objective: To evaluate the effect of expert-patient teaching on empathy development in nursing students. Methods: This randomized controlled trial was conducted among 144 first-year undergraduate nursing students divided into two equal groups. In the experimental group, the educational intervention consisted of a seminar focused on empathy, followed by a presentation on expert-patient function. Subsequently, each student participated in two interactive meetings with nursing teacher and expert patient. At the end, the nursing teacher encouraged students to reflect on this experience. In the control group, students only attended a similar seminar focused on empathy and afterward participated in two interactive meetings with a nursing teacher to reflect on this topic without expert-patient involvement. Before (T0) and after (T1) the training intervention, the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale, Jefferson Scale of Empathy — Health Professions Student (JSE-HPS), and a short demographic questionnaire were administered to the two student groups to measure their empathy levels. The study was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of Area Vasta Emilia Nord (protocol 1763, May 11, 2017). Data were statistically analyzed. Results: We found a statistically significant difference between mean scores at T0 and T1 in both scales in the experimental group. Male students, who presented significantly lower levels of empathy at baseline in comparison with females, showed increased in empathy after training on the the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale in both the experimental and control groups. Conclusion: The present study highlights that involvement of expert patients in teaching is effective in improving empathy levels in both male and female nursing students. Expert-patient teaching can be a promising nursing-education modality for developing empathy.