Search results

This paper's aim is to study North African refugees admitted to Sicilian hospitals from Lampedusa by helicopter emergency service 118, from 1 January to 22 September 2011 when due to a violent uprising in the Refugee Centre, Lampedusa is no longer accepting refugees by order of the Ministry of Interior.

Those migrants who were in need of hospitalization were transferred to the Sicilian hospitals exclusively by the emergency helicopter service 118. All 203 patients were classified according to the admission diagnosis reported on medical records of 118 and data were aggregated according to: disease, sex and department in which hospitalization was required.

Women were admitted to hospital almost exclusively for obstetrics and gynecological problems, while men for trauma, severe dehydration, attempted suicide, infectious diseases (TB, airways distress, and scabies), seizures and metabolic diseases. Hospitalization rate was 20 times lower in African migrants than Italian population compared per age and sex, confirming “the healthy immigrant effect”.

The paper shows that identification of health problems requires a careful monitoring that has implications for diseases dissemination (i.e. TB, HIV) both for ill patients who arrive, either for prophylaxis of healthy migrants, pursuing a valid vaccination policy. Maximum use must be made of the moment of the arrival of migrants to get and disseminate health information.

This article sets out to show how principles and questions about method that underlie a way of interpreting the discipline of conservation and restoration can find results in research and studies, aiming at achieving even conscious reuse process. The occasion is the very recent research performed on the former Church of Saints Gerolamo and Francesco Saverio in Genoa, Italy, the Jesuit church annexed to the 17th-century College of the order. It is a small Baroque jewel in the heart of the ancient city, former University Library and actually abandoned, forgotten for years, inaccessible and awaiting a new use.

The two-year work carried out on the monumental building was conducted according to a study and research methodology developed and refined over the years within the activities of the School of Specialisation in Architectural Heritage and Landscape of the University of Genoa. It is a multidisciplinary and rigorous approach, which aims to train high-level professionals, up-to-date and aware of the multiple problems that interventions on existing buildings, especially of a monumental nature, involve.

The biennal study has been carried out within the activities of the Post-Graduate Programme in Architectural Heritage and Landscape of the University of Genoa. The work methodology faces the challenges of the contemporary complexity, raised by the progressive broadening of the concept of cultural “heritage” and by the problems of its conservation, its active safeguard and its reuse: safety in respect of seismic risk, fire and hydro geological instability, universal accessibility – cognitive, physical and alternative – resource efficiency, comfort and savings in energy consumption, sustainability, communication and involvement of local communities and stakeholders.

The goals of the work were the following: understanding of the architectural heritage, through the correlated study of its geometries, elements and construction materials, surfaces, structures, spaces and functions; understanding of the transformations that the building has undergone over time, relating the results of historical reconstructions from indirect sources and those of direct archaeological analysis; assessment of the state of conservation of the building recognising phenomena of deterioration, damage, faults and deficits that affect materials, construction elements, systems and structures; identification of the causes and extent of damage, faults and deficits, assessing the vulnerability and level of exposure of the asset to the aggression of environmental factors and related risks; evaluation of the compatibility between the characteristics of the available spaces, the primary needs of conservation, the instance of regeneration and possible new uses; the definition of criteria and guidelines for establishing the planning of conservation, restoration and redevelopment interventions.

Violence against health-care workers represents a public health issue that affects individuals, organizations and may have legal consequences. In Italy, workplace violence (WPV) constitutes a “sentinel event”, defined as a particularly serious, potentially avoidable adverse event, which may result in death or serious harm to health-care workers, and which leads to a loss of public confidence in the health-care system. In 2007, the Italian Ministry of Health issued Recommendation No. 8, “Preventing acts of violence against health workers”, inviting each Italian Hospital to develop procedures and guidelines for dealing with and preventing acts of aggression. This study aimed at investigating the appropriateness of the procedures and guidelines developed by the Italian hospitals.

Procedures on preventing violence against health-care workers published by 29 Italian Hospitals between 2007 and 2020 were collected retrospectively via Web searches and further evaluated according to their compliance with the 2007 Italian ministerial recommendations.

A total of 9 documents out of 29 were fully compliant with the 2007 Ministerial Recommendation, 18 were partially compliant, while 2 were totally non-compliant. A total of 24 documents explicitly addressed the management of verbal and physical aggression, whereas 20 set appropriate training on de-escalation techniques for nurses and medical staff. Psychological support was fully considered in 11 procedures, partially considered in 14, while not included at all in 4.

Public procedures on preventing violence against health-care workers in Italian hospitals are scarcely compliant with the Ministerial Recommendations. The absence of specific instructions to address the needs at territorial level and the lack of support provided to health-care workers is a weak point in the effective management of WPV.

Resurgent interest in the life and work of the Italian Cambridge economist Piero Sraffa is leading to New Directions in Sraffa Scholarship. This chapter introduces readers to some of these developments. First and perhaps foremost is the fact that as of September 2016 Sraffa’s archival material has been uploaded onto the website of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University, as digital colour images; this chapter introduces readers to the history of these events. This history provides sharp relief on the extant debates over the role of the archival material in leading to the final publication of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, and readers are provided a brief sketch of these matters. The varied nature of Sraffa scholarship is demonstrated by the different aspects of Sraffa’s intellectual legacy which are developed and discussed in the various entries of our Symposium. The conclusion is reached that we are on the cusp of an exciting phase change of tremendous potential in Sraffa scholarship.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relationship between migratory status, the use of legal and illegal psychoactive substances and psychological disorders perceived in a sample of minors.

A transversal multicentre study was carried out with interviews with young people aged 13-16 years recruited from middle and high schools in Italy.

The results show the implementation of a process of normalization in terms of the presence of legal and illegal psychoactive substances in the living contexts of the minors, of their widespread early use and of a substantial indifferentiation in the reasons for use (e.g. pleasure, curiosity, fun). Youths born in Italy with at least one non-native parent are noteworthy for an elevated prevalence of perceived psychological disorders and for particular lifestyles linked to the use of marijuana, alcohol abuse and the intensive consumption of tobacco. Second-generation minors show symptoms of psychological malaise, anxiety and depression before which the use of substances appears to realize a particular form of self-cure.

This study presents some objective limits that indicate prudence in generalizing the results: only those who obtained consent from their parents were interviewed and the information communicated in the interviews could have been influenced by various factors, including the situation and the location. The authors used a standard definition of binge-drinking (Valencia-Martín et al., 2008). Actually, different criteria (i.e. number of drinks, time of consumption, etc.) and formulations of the question are used in different surveys, showing that there is as yet no consensus definition of binge-drinking. Nevertheless, the term has become somewhat confusing as it is often used as a synonym of drunkenness, making cross-cultural comparisons difficult (Beccaria et al., 2014). These are aspects that limit the generalizability of the results to the interviews alone and do not allow for prevalence estimates. Nevertheless, the results offer useful indications for future prevention projects specifically oriented to early adolescence.

The results of the study, on the one hand, document the growing use of legal and illegal proactive substances among minors and the relative cultural trend in this particular age band, testified to by the high number of those who have been present in situations of consumption to whom the substances were offered; on the other, they evidence a subpopulation of youths born in Italy with at least one non-native parent (i.e. second generation of immigrants). These youths stand out for an elevated prevalence of perceived psychological disorders and for their particular lifestyles connected to the use of marijuana, alcohol abuse and the intensive consumption of alcohol. This is also the group with the highest percentage of mothers alone in the family.

A group of adolescents living in a monoparental family, that is, with the mother alone emerges, and as the literature has shown, family structure and poverty are linked (Landale et al., 2011; Svensson and Hagquist, 2009). In fact, such mothers, even those with a high level of education, are mostly unemployed. Adolescents with a single parent often not only face resource deficits but also other risk factors, such as high family stress, inadequate supervision, multiple family transitions and frequent residential moves. Specifically, these second-generation adolescents are female and they manifest sensation-seeking behaviours, but without drug abuse.

The results of the study show new and little-known aspects of the multicultural Italian society that is changing profoundly that should be explored in more detail by targeted research that also focussed on structural factors relatable to specific social positions. In this framework, a particular subgroup, i.e. the second-generation minors, shows symptoms of psychic malaise, anxiety and depression in terms of which substance use seems to realize a form of self-cure.