Resumo em Inglês:

The Italian Dementia National Plan was formulated in October 2014 by the Italian Ministry of Health in close cooperation with the regions, the National Institute of Health and the three major national associations of patients and carers. The main purpose of this strategy was to provide directive indications for promoting and improving interventions in the dementia field, not limiting to specialist and therapeutic actions, but particularly focusing on the support of patients and families throughout the pathways of care. Four main objectives are indicated: 1) promote health- and social-care interventions and policies; 2) create/strengthen the integrated network of services for dementia based on an integrated approach; 3) implement strategies for promoting appropriateness and quality of care; and 4) improve the quality of life of persons with dementia and their families by supporting empowerment and stigma reduction. These objectives and the pertaining actions are described in the present paper.

Resumo em Inglês:

In an article in The Boston Globe, Steven Pinker holds that the primary moral good of bioethics should be to "get out of the way". The accusation that bioethics is an obstacle to research because it calls attention to basic principles such as personal dignity and justice is clearly contradicted by the facts. There are, nonetheless, other ways in which bioethics can stand in the way of science, two of which, bureaucratisation and the loss of cultural vivacity, are worth addressing. Ethics committees provide a framework for evaluating problems and determining an appropriate course of action.

Resumo em Inglês:

Cephalopods have been defined as "advanced invertebrates" due to the complexity of their nervous system and to their sophisticated behavioural repertoire. However, until recently, the protection and welfare of this class of invertebrates has been mostly disregarded by EU regulations on the use of laboratory animals. The inclusion of "live cephalopods" in the Directive 2010/63/EU has been prompted by new scientific knowledge on the "sentience" of animals used for experimental or other scientific purposes, a fundamental criterion to which animal species are included or not under the protective umbrella of the Directive. In this scenario, the imminent publication of the Guidelines for the care and welfare of cephalopods in research as an initiative by the CephRes-FELASA-Boyd Group is a sign of ethical progress in the consideration of animals in research, and is likely to have a significant impact on both scientific and practical aspects of research conducted with these animals.

Resumo em Inglês:

The issues raised by public health surveillance are typical of those involved in public health ethics. Surveillance calls, in particular, for the balancing of individual rights and collective interests, which are often in conflict. One of the issues most closely linked with public health surveillance is the collection and use of personal data for purposes of public concern. Numerous frameworks (proposed by institutions, working groups or single individuals) are available for use in assessing the ethical correctness of public health interventions in general or, more specifically, of public health surveillance. While heterogeneous in nature, these frameworks are nonetheless built on a foundation of common values that are similar to those typically encountered in a clinical setting and to which bioethics has traditionally devoted considerable attention. However, it is necessary to apply these values to the specific context of public health, where the focus is more on the interests of the public at large than on those of the individual.

Resumo em Inglês:

OBJECTIVE: To assess nurses' knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) towards spontaneous adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reporting. METHODS: The mixed-method study was conducted following a quanti-qualitative sequential approach: a survey (using a KAP questionnaire) followed by a focus group was performed. RESULTS: In the quantitative findings, responders (570 hospital nurses) declared that they were unaware of the pharmacovigilance system (58.1%, n = 331); where to find the reporting form (63.5%, n = 362); how fill it in (71.6%, n = 408); to whom and how to send it (65.8%, n = 375). Only 11.1% (n = 63) reported ADRs. The qualitative phase supported the quantitative findings and provided new information about other factors that condition ADR reporting: misinterpretation of the meaning of "reporting", unawareness of nurses' autonomy in ADR reporting and fear of consequences after ADR reporting. CONCLUSION: Nurses are not fully aware of their role in ADR reporting. We recommend educational interventions and management changes.

Resumo em Inglês:

BACKGROUND: Ticks are vectors and important reservoirs for microbial agents that cause disease in humans and animals. Among these pathogens, the members of Rickettsia species play an important role in public health. AIM AND METHODS: One hundred twenty-nine ticks belonging to four tick species (Ixodes ricinus,Rhipicephalus turanicus,Dermacentor marginatus, and Haemaphysalis punctata) were collected at different sites of the Insugherata Natural Reserve, localized in the urban area of Rome, Italy. Questing ticks were tested by PCR for Rickettsia spp., amplifying partial gene of ompA. RESULTS: Forty-six ticks were found to be infected with Rickettsia species. Five SFG rickettsiae were identified: three human pathogens Rickettsia conorii, Rickettsia massiliae and Rickettsia aeschlimannii, and two putative new strains Rickettsia sp. strain RM1 and Rickettsia sp. strain RM2. The phylogenetic analysis of partial gene sequences of ompA, gltA, and 17-kd antigen showed that they clustered with several rickettsiae with unidentified pathogenicity. However, Rickettsia sp. strain RM1 and Rickettsia sp. strain RM2 clustered in a statistically supported clade with R. massiliae, and R. monacensis, respectively. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that Rickettsia species other than R. conorii are implicated in human disease in Italy.

Resumo em Inglês:

Deposition monitoring, already in use by government control organizations of various countries, contributes to an important increase in experimental knowledge on pollutant deposition fluxes, on their environmental fate and on the possible effects on human health. At the European level, the necessity to consider with extreme attention the environmental contamination due to deposition, has brought to adopt a series of legislative measures and recommendations; this has contributed to set up environmental surveillance systems and monitoring campaigns for a series of pollutants which may accumulate in the environment as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and for metals. More recently, with DL.vo 155/2010, the necessity to consider, in the development of monitoring stations, the possibility to detect also data on deposition rates which represent a non-direct exposure of the population through the food chain. For sampling the Decree considers only two types of depositions: for total deposition (bulk and Bergerhoff) and wet only deposition.

Resumo em Inglês:

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this investigation is to estimate the incidence rates of upper extremity injuries and to give an overview of the most frequent diagnoses. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two population databases were queried for all injuries in the upper extremities, the SINIACA-IDB (S-IDB: Emergency Department Injury Database in Italy) and the Hospital Discharge Register (HDR). The diagnoses codes of hand trauma were selected from both databases in order to estimate the national incidence rate. RESULTS: According to the S-IDB data of year 2011, total 1 479 510 ED attendances per year in Italy were estimated with an upper extremity injury (incidence rate: 2491 per 100 000 persons/year). About 880 816 Emergency Department (ED) attendances per year are due to hand injuries, while over 653 336 attendances per year concern arm injuries. The incidence rates are 1483 and 1100 per 100 000 person/year respectively. About 201 940 hospitalizations are observed in the HDR because of upper extremity injuries (incidence rate: 340 per 100 000 persons/year). Males have higher incidence rate (387 vs 280 per 100 000 persons per year). The trend in the incidence rates for the age group of inpatients shows two peaks: at age 12 (400 cases per 100 000 persons/year), and in the older age groups (700 cases per 100 000 persons/year).

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BACKGROUND: Migrants have problematic access to health-care; non-institutional organizations (NGOs), as well as institutional bodies may play a role in facilitating their access to mainstream health care. AIM: Our research reviews actions that address the need of migrants in terms of health care in order to understand how, where, and who participates in this effort. METHOD: Data were from desk or web research, declaration from organisations and their websites, information from WHO Country Offices. RESULTS: 154 NGOs were identified in the WHO European Region. 58% were direct health care providers while the remaining provided either mediation services or were part of a network organization. 173 national institutes (GOVs) were found; less than the 20% were directly or indirectly involved in health care, whereas the majority were involved in research, policy development, international relations and human rights. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: Some gaps, a certain fragmentation and lack of coordination were identified. WHO can play an overarching role in the exchange of expertise and harmonisation of the efforts in this field.

Resumo em Inglês:

INTRODUCTION: Prevalence of infection with HIV-1 non-B subtypes in Italy has been reported to raise, due to increased migration flows and travels. HIV-1 variants show different biological and immunological properties that impact on disease progression rate, response to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and sensitivity of diagnostic tests with important implications for public health. Therefore, a constant surveillance of the dynamics of HIV variants in Italy should be a high public health priority. Organization of surveillance studies requires building up a platform constituted of a network of clinical centers, laboratories and institutional agencies, able to properly collect samples for the investigation of HIV subtypes heterogeneity and to provide a database with reliable demographic, clinical, immunological and virological data. AIM: We here report our experience in building up such a platform, co-ordinated by the National AIDS Center of the Istituto Superiore di Sanita, taking advantage of a pilot study aimed at evaluating HIV subtypes diversity in populations of HIV-infected migrant people in Italy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Four hundred and thirty four HIV-infected migrants were enrolled in 9 Italian clinical centers located throughout the Italian territory. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for sample collection were provided by the National AIDS Center to each clinical center. In addition, clinical centers were required to fill up a case report form (crf) for each patient, which included demographic, clinical, immunological and virological information. RESULTS: All centers properly collected and stored samples from each enrolled individual. Overall, the required information was correctly provided for more than 90% of the patients. However, some fields of the crf, particularly those including information on the last HIV-negative antibody test and presence of co-infections, were properly filled up in less than 80% of the enrolled migrants. Centers from Northern and Central Italy showed a better tendency to report correct information in the crf than centers from the South. These results provide evidence that procedures for establishing a platform for the surveillance of HIV subtype heterogeneity are affordable by all the components of the network and lay the ground for the organization of a broader HIV subtypes surveillance in Italy.

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OBJECTIVE: Screening for HBV among groups at risk, such as migrant populations, has proved to be a cost-effective strategy. With a view to advising local policy-makers, the cost-consequences of HBV screening was assessed using a modeling approach. METHODS: This cost-consequence analysis of an HBV screening strategy was conducted in a cohort of adult migrants in the province of Padua, northern Italy. RESULTS: The population targeted for screening consisted of 65405 migrants, among whom the weighted rate for the prevalence of HBV was 0.04972, with 3251 people infected. Over a period of 5 years, the screening strategy prevented 565 cases/year of chronic hepatitis, 141 of compensated cirrhosis, 9 of decompensated cirrhosis, 14 hepatocellular carcinomas and 12 deaths. The above data revealed that the incremental cost of the screening strategy compared to no screening strategy was 7 974 959 over the five year period. The cost per life saved amounted to 676 709. CONCLUSIONS: The present study provides useful information to policy-makers at local and regional levels.

Resumo em Inglês:

INTRODUCTION: Asbestos exposure has a negative impact on both the physical health of the population, and on its psychological and community components. Usually such issues are addressed via top-down strategies, but this approach is unable to address the interpersonal processes connected to living in a specific context. METHOD: The work carried on in Casale Monferrato since 2006 proceeds in the opposite direction: promoting a different interaction between health system policy-makers and administrators, field actions, and system thinking. Our goal was to create a reliable model that could fit into other contexts, while being flexible and adapting to specific backgrounds. Starting from the results obtained during a first assessment phase, a psychoanalytic group was arranged, aimed at promoting the symbolization and signification of the emotions related to the ill-fated prognosis. RESULTS: The clinical work offers a space for handling the illness and its psychological impact, in order to achieve: 1) a subjective perception of themselves as not impotent and alone; 2) improved abilities of caregivers to manage the disease; 3) enhanced quality of residual life. CONCLUSIONS: An integrated multidimensional intervention promotes resilience in the community, but it requires time, for patients, relatives, and the professionals involved. Only with the combined support of oncologists and the entire ward staff will an internal trust be free to grow within a somato-psychic space able to accommodate and sustain the participants during the final stages of their own life, or that of someone close to them.

Resumo em Inglês:

In the context of the Community Programme in the field of Health, the European Commission financed a series of initiatives to support the development and use of indicators for planning health services for Rare Diseases (RDs). The European Project for Rare Disease National Plans Development (EUROPLAN) elaborated a set of 59 process and outcome indicators, for monitoring the implementation and for evaluating the impact of the National Plans on RDs. Due to the high number and difficulty in handling the indicators, the subsequent Joint Action "Working for RDs" planned to derive a selection of 21 core indicators that were adopted by the European Union Committee of Experts on RDs in June 2013. The descriptive study carried out in the framework of the Joint Action to select the key indicators to orient policies for RDs shows that core indicators represent an excellent opportunity to share knowledge and comparability among Member States.

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AIM: Rotavirus is recognized as the main cause of acute gastroenteritis in children under 5 years old, representing a considerable public health problem with a great impact on social and public health costs in developed countries. This study aims to assess the frequency and the epidemiological aspect of the hospitalization associated with Rotavirus-gastroenteritis in Lombardy, Northern Italy, from 2005 to 2011. METHODS: The Lombardy Hospital Discharge Database was inquired from the official data of the Italian Ministry of Health and investigated for acute gastroenteritis (ICD9CM code for bacteria, parasitic, viral and undetermined etiologic diarrhea) in primary and secondary diagnosis in children < 5 years, between 2005 and 2011. RESULTS: Out of the 32 944 acute-gastroenteritis hospitalizations reported in Lombardy, the 50.8% was caused by Rotavirus infection; of these, the 65.5% were reported in primary diagnosis. The peak of Rotavirus-gastroenteritis hospitalization was observed in February-March in children < 2 years old, with a cumulative prevalence of 64.5%. Patients admitted to hospital with diarrhea of undetermined etiology (about 14% of overall acute-gastroenteritis) showed epidemiological characteristics similar to the Rotavirus-gastroenteritis, suggesting that the virus infection could also be involved in at least some of these. CONCLUSION: Our data confirm that Rotavirus are the most important agents involving in acute gastroenteritis hospitalizations. The use of Hospital Discharge Database had proved to be a simple tool to estimate the burden and to describe the epidemiological characteristics of Rotavirus gastroenteritis and could be used as a surveillance activity before and after the introduction of mass vaccination at national and regional level in Italy.

Resumo em Inglês:

INTRODUCTION: A lack of social consensus on the duty to comply with a patient's request to forgo treatment was reported in Italy, but little is known about the nurses' attitudes regarding this issue. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Questionnaire including two clinical scenarios regarding doctor's decision to not comply with a competent patient's request to forgo treatment was administered to all nurses (n = 487) of an Italian medium-sized hospital. RESULTS: Eighty-five percent of nurses completed the study. Although 83% of participants supported a general right to self-determination, around 40% of them agreed with the doctor's decision in both scenarios. The multivariate analyses adjusted for gender, age, length of professional experience, and care setting showed that the agreement with the doctor's decision was significantly associated with nurses' personal background beliefs about self-determination and quality of life. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Many nurses have difficulty in accepting a patient's request to forgo treatment. Increasing ethical reflection and discussion at both educational and professional level, and introducing ethical consultation services would be essential to develop a consistent approach to end-of-life decisions in Italian hospitals.

Resumo em Inglês:

The present pilot study aims at analyzing the human activity of playing in the light of an indicator of human ecology (HE). We highlighted the four essential anthropological dimensions (FEAD), starting from the analysis of questionnaires administered to actual gamers. The coherence between theoretical construct and observational data is a remarkable proof-of-concept of the possibility of establishing an experimentally motivated link between a philosophical construct (coming from Huizinga's Homo ludens definition) and actual gamers' motivation pattern. The starting hypothesis is that the activity of playing becomes ecological (and thus not harmful) when it achieves the harmony between the FEAD, thus realizing HE; conversely, it becomes at risk of creating some form of addiction, when destroying FEAD balance. We analyzed the data by means of variable clustering (oblique principal components) so to experimentally verify the existence of the hypothesized dimensions. The subsequent projection of statistical units (gamers) on the orthogonal space spanned by principal components allowed us to generate a meaningful, albeit preliminary, clusterization of gamer profiles.

Resumo em Inglês:

INTRODUCTION: The study aims to investigate the change in the burden of disease and the microbiological characteristics of Invasive Meningococcal Disease (IMD) in Puglia in comparison with overall incidence from 1994 through 2014. METHODS: Data are gathered in the frame of the National Surveillance System coordinated by the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) of the Istituto Superiore di Sanit`. RESULTS: In Puglia, from 1994 through 2014, the average incidence of IMD was 0.2 per 100 000 inhabitants, below the national average value (0.33). IMD cases tended to be older than the other cases reported in Italy (median age 19 vs 16). The case-fatality rate was 20.4% in Puglia vs 13.3% in Italy. Serogroups B and C were most frequently identified. Serogroups C and Y presented a fairly clonal pattern, whereas serogroup B was genetically rather heterogeneous. CONCLUSION: Surveillance systems are critical in monitoring any change in the epidemiology of IMD.

Resumo em Inglês:

OBJECTIVE: To describe dietary habits and related geographic and socio-demographic characteristics among children aged 8-9 years in Italy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data from the 2012 national nutritional surveillance system collected from children, parents and teachers, have been linked to determine the children's eating habits. Logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the association between incorrect dietary habits and their potential predictors. RESULTS: Of the 46 307 children, 8.6% skipped breakfast, 48.8% did not eat vegetables and 28.7% did not eat fruit daily, 64.8% ate an abundant mid-morning snack, 41.4% drank sugary beverages and 12.5% drank carbonated beverages at least once a day. Three or more incorrect habits were found in 43.9% of the children. Incorrect dietary habits were more common among children with lower socio-economic conditions, who were resident in the South of the country and who spent more time watching TV. CONCLUSION: In Italy, unhealthy dietary habits are common among children. The deficiencies identified may well be a harbinger of future public health problems.

Resumo em Inglês:

BACKGROUND: Polyphenols from olive are known to possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. AIM: The aim of this study was to study whether or not 10 consecutive days i.p. administration of a blend of olive (Olea europaea L.) polyphenols (10 mg/kg) containing mostly hydroxytyrosol could have an effect on cytokines playing important roles in inflammatory processes as TNF-α and IL-10. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Inflammation was induced in the mouse paw by 2 carrageenan injections (50 5l vol, 5 mg/kg each). TNF-α and IL-10 were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS: Carrageenan decreased IL-10 in the paws, however, this reduction appeared to be less evident in mice treated with carrageenan but administered with polyphenols. As for TNF-α, our findings did not reveal differences between groups but an increase in the polyphenol and carrageenan group if compared to the carrageenan only group. As for antioxidant polyphenols' properties, no differences between groups in the serum glutathione were found. CONCLUSIONS: Altogether, this investigation shows that olive polyphenols in the mouse may modulate the levels of cytokines having a role in the process of inflammation as TNF-α and IL-10.

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INTRODUCTION: Visual performance of eyes with congenital pathologies is conditioned by an early diagnosis. Families having problems in accessing health services risk to delay or miss both an early diagnosis and an early treatment and amblyopia (lazy eye) prevention. METHODS: In our hospital, all full-term, healthy newborns are thoroughly examined by an ophthalmologist in the maternal ward, 1 to 3 days after birth. RESULTS: Among the first 5000 newborns examined, a high incidence of congenital pathologies compared to international literature was reported, with differences between Caucasians and non-Caucasians. CONCLUSION: Performing an early in-hospital thorough eye examination in all newborns as a screening would be an effective way to miss none and to start an early and effective pathway of disease treatment.