Leonardo Carlucci

Background: Recent data show that approximately 3.8% of the global population has a diagnosis of depression. Understanding psychological risk and protective factors is crucial for improving prevention strategies and mental health interventions. Among these, worry and emotional intelligence (EI) have emerged as relevant, yet they are rarely studied together. To date, no studies that analyzed the relationship between emotional intelligence, worry, and depression have been found. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the association among EI, worry, and depression. Methods: This study included 924 participants (N = 806 non-clinical and N = 118 subclinical sample with elevated depressive symptoms), with a mean age of M = 25.55 years (SD = 11.38). A total of 118 participants (12.8%) met the criteria for clinical depression based on the BDI-II cut-off. All participants completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, and the Emotional Intelligence Scale. To examine the relationships among all variables examined, zero-order correlation coefficients were calculated. To investigate the predictive power of EI and worry on depression, Bayesian linear regression was conducted. Results: The results showed significant and positive correlations between worry and depression in both samples. EI showed significant and negative correlations with both depression and worry in both the subclinical sample with elevated depressive symptoms and the non-clinical sample. Finally, worry emerged as the strongest contributor to the somatic dimension of depression in both groups. In the subclinical sample with elevated depressive symptoms, age and Evaluation and Expression of Emotion to Self, along with worry, were the best predictors of somatic symptoms. Conclusions: Our data suggest that higher worry levels are associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms, whereas higher EI was negatively associated with depressive symptoms and may play a potential buffering role. Training programs designed to enhance EI could help mitigate the impact of negative events, improve problem-solving skills, and enhance the expression of one’s own emotions.

Late-life suicide represents a major public health issue, with older adults showing the highest lethality and completion rates. Mild Cognitive Impairment (

The ketogenic diet (KD) is a low-carbohydrate diet that induces and sustains a ketosis state and minimizes somatic glucose levels. Several psychological studies have described the positive effects of ketosis on cognitive functions for a wide range of neuropsychiatric conditions (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease; epilepsy), leading to greater interest in the KD today. However, the psychological and cognitive effects of inducing ketosis via diet remain unclear, especially in healthy people. From an initial pool of thirty participants, eight undergraduate students performed a cognitive assessment before (baseline) and after three weeks (follow-up) of an isocaloric ketogenic diet. Several neuropsychological measures and psychometric tests have been administered to investigate psychological chronotype, sleep quality, eating habits, anxiety and cognitive components of attention, inhibition, and memory. Non-parametric Bayesian analysis showed that the ketogenic diet affected cognitive functions. Participants performed cognitive tests faster at follow-up than at baseline, showing improvements in visual-motor cognitive and processing speed components. However, they were less accurate on working memory tasks, suggesting a decreasing performance of higher cognitive functions. Finally, no differences in anxiety levels were found between baseline and follow-up. The results could have significant implications for identifying specific cognitive models of students based on specific lifestyle habits and nutritional patterns, allowing the implementation of targeted interventions to improve university learning conditions.

Introduction: Psychache, or mental pain, is considered an independent predictor of suicide risk. Recent perspectives highlight the unbearable aspect of psychache as an imminent trigger for suicidal crisis. To assess this specific dimension, the Unbearable Psychache Scale (UP3) was developed from the original Psychache Scale (PAS). Although preliminary studies investigated UP3’s psychometric properties, its discriminant validity in assessing suicide risk remains unclear. Methods: Thus, two cross-sectional studies were conducted on Italian community samples to examine the factorial structure, internal consistency, and scalability of the Italian UP3, and to compare its incremental and discriminant validity with PAS13/PAS10 in identifying individuals at risk for suicide. Results: Study #1 (N = 707) confirmed the UP3’s unidimensional structure, with good model fit, internal consistency, and scalability. In Study #2 (N = 257), the UP3 correlated moderately to strongly with PASs, depression, and suicide risk. ROC analyses indicated that UP3 achieved comparable accuracy to PAS13 and PAS10 for recent suicide risk (AUCs 0.75–0.83), but lower accuracy for lifetime suicidal ideation (AUC = 0.681) and behaviors (AUC = 0.777). Sensitivity analyses revealed that UP3 prioritized sensitivity over specificity, with low Positive Predictive Values across outcomes: PPV was 0.42 for recent suicidal ideation, and 0.21 for recent suicidal behaviors, compared with slightly higher but still limited values for PAS scales. Hierarchical models showed that UP3 did not demonstrate incremental validity over PAS13 in predicting either recent or lifetime suicide risk. Discussion: The UP3 appears particularly sensitive to acute unbearable psychache, performing better in detecting recent than lifetime suicide risk. Although it does not outperform PAS scales, the UP3’s brevity and focus on the intolerable component of psychache make it suitable for use alongside other measures as part of a comprehensive suicide risk evaluation in clinical or large-scale contexts.

Background: Recent data show that approximately 3.8% of the global population has a diagnosis of depression. Understanding psychological risk and protective factors is crucial for improving prevention strategies and mental health interventions. Among these, worry and Emotional Intelligence (EI) have emerged as relevant, yet rarely studied together. To date, no studies that analyzed the relationship between Emotional Intelligence, worry, and depression together have been found. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the association among EI, worry, and depression. Methods: This study included 924 participants (N = 806 non-clinical and N =118 subclinical sample with elevated depressive symptoms), with mean age of M = 25.55 years (SD = 11.38). A total of 118 participants (12.8%) met the criteria for clinical depression based on the BDI-II cut-off. All participants completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ; Meyer et al., 1990), the Beck Depression Inventory-II (Beck et al., 1996), and the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS; Schutte et al., 1998). To examine the relationships among all variables examined zero-order correlation coefficients were calculated. To investigate the predictive power of EI and worry on depression, Bayesian linear regression was conducted. Results: The results showed significant and positive correlations between worry and depression in both samples. EI showed significant and negative correlations with both depression and worry in both subclinical sample with elevated depressive symptoms and non-clinical sample. Finally, worry emerged as the strongest contributor of the somatic dimension of depression in both groups. In the subclinical sample with elevated depressive symptoms, age and Evaluation and Expression of Emotion to Self, along with worry, were the best predictors of somatic symptoms. Conclusions: Our data suggest that high worry levels increase depression risk, whereas higher EI may serve as a protective buffer. Training programs designed to enhance EI could help mitigate the impact of negative events, improve problem solving skills, and enhance the expression of one’s own emotions.

Recent investigations have suggested that both metacognition and emotions play important roles in second language (L2) learning. However, the majority of these studies focused on negative emotions, such as anxiety, or considered high school or university students, neglecting primary school age students, which is frequently the starting period in which a L2 is learned. Moreover, none of these studies investigated both metacognition and emotions in relation to L2 learning. Thus, the present study aimed to explore within a short-term longitudinal design the role of both metacognition and emotions in learning English as a L2 starting from an early stage, namely, in primary school. We included 305 Italian 2nd and 3rd graders ( M _age = 7.44 years; SD = 0.59; 48.5% females). They were evaluated twice, at the beginning (T0) and the end of the school year (T1), on an English vocabulary test, metacognitive monitoring and control of performance on the English vocabulary test, and achievement emotions (i.e., enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom) related to learning English as a L2. Basic cognitive abilities were also assessed at T0. The results showed that both metacognitive monitoring and control abilities significantly predicted children’s English vocabulary improvements from the first to the second test administration points. Among the achievement emotions, only boredom was a strong predictor of English vocabulary learning. These outcomes showed that metacognitive and emotional variables are relevant beginning at the early stage of L2 learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the mental health of those who survived the illness but underwent long treatment and hospitalization. Much research has highlighted signs of emotional distress in those who experienced intensive care, and the procedures implemented to fight the infection. The present study investigated the effects of the illness experience in 40 subjects admitted to a rehabilitation unit after discharge from intensive care by focusing on the possibility of differences in emotional well-being depending on the type of ventilation. The results of the administration of psychological scales for anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder showed that many subjects experienced some form of emotional distress. There were no differences between patients who underwent invasive ventilation and those who did not.