Addiction and religiosity in facing suicide: a qualitative study on meaning of life and death among homeless people

Moderating Effect of Help-Seeking in the Relationship between Religiosity and Dispositional Gratitude among Polish Homeless Adults: A Brief Report

Although empirical reports draw attention to the pathological aspects of the functioning of the homeless, recent studies show the benefits related to the elevating roles of different positive phenomena in coping with difficulties for this group of people. The main goal was to verify whether there is a direct relationship between religiosity and gratitude among the homeless, and whether this association is moderated by the reported help-seeking since both religiosity and gratitude seem to play an important role in homeless people’s lives. In total, 189 homeless persons participated in the study. Their mean age was M = 56.55 (SD = 12.39; range = 27–86). Most respondents were men (n = 119; 63%). The Scale of Religious Attitude Intensity and the Gratitude Questionnaire were used. The outcomes presented a statistically significant positive correlation between religious attitude and gratitude (r = 0.326***, p = 0.001). Help-seeking played a moderatory role in this relationship. Therefore, it can be assumed that the relationship between religiosity attitude intensity and dispositional gratitude is stronger when homeless persons seek specific help from other people or institutions compared to when they do not look for assistance. Homeless people, overcoming their limitations by actively asking for help, can strengthen their bonds with God (faith, religiosity) and with others (dispositional gratitude).

Purpose in Life of Elite Athletes after Spinal Cord Injury

Background: Searching for the meaning of human existence is man’s fundamental orientation. People are free to find meaning in their lives, and while they are not always free to choose the conditions of life, they are free to choose their attitude toward the conditions in which they find themselves. When people experience an unchangeable situation, the most important thing is the attitude they take toward it. This study aimed to identify the sense of meaning in life among elite athletes after a spinal cord injury (SCI) and to analyze the different aspects contributing to this domain. Methods: The study involved five athletes with at least national-level achievements in sports prior to a SCI. The study consisted of an interview using a communicator and filling out two online questionnaires—a personal questionnaire and the Purpose in Life Scale. Results: Analyzing the quantitative results, four participants achieved results indicating a high sense of meaning in life, while one participant achieved a significantly lower result. Conclusions: What affects one’s purpose in life is not so much the objective physical limitation but how much physicality one perceives to have lost as a result of the injury. Elite athletes stay involved in the sporting environment, which prevents the loss of purpose and maintains a sense of meaning at a high level. Both telling the story of your own illness and listening to the stories of others help the process of self-healing.

Conflicts Between Women's Religiosity and Sense of Free Will in the Context of Elective Abortion: A Qualitative Study in the Worst Period of Italy's COVID-19 Crisis

This qualitative study considers the relationship between abortion, bereavement, and the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown nine women who had undergone an elective abortion, which is voluntarily termination of a pregnancy at the woman's request. These women were interviewed in three time points (1 month, 6 months, and 1 year after the event) to consider the possible evolution of their experience. The third phase was concurrent with the COVID-19 pandemic and particularly with Pope Francis's Easter declaration against abortion. All the interviews were conducted and analysed through qualitative research in psychology. Results showed that the abortion experience led to physical, relational, and psychological suffering, similar to perinatal grief. Participants were non-practising Catholics and religiosity did not help them to overcome their sorrow. Though religiosity is a possible resilience factor in other stressful conditions, in this case it is a factor that aggravated suffering. Finally, we discuss the difficulties experienced by Catholic women who choose to have an abortion and assert the necessity of psychological and spiritual interventions to support these women.

The Endless Grief in Waiting: A Qualitative Study of the Relationship between Ambiguous Loss and Anticipatory Mourning amongst the Relatives of Missing Persons in Italy

This article presents the results of a qualitative study aiming to consider the relationship between ambiguous loss and anticipatory mourning amongst relatives of missing people in Italy. Eight people participated in the research, narrating their experiences of losing a beloved person (one found alive, three found dead, and four still missing). Findings suggest the presence of a particular form of ambiguous loss, characterised by traits typical of both prolonged and traumatic grief. These findings describe how families are faced with an emotional vortex related to a never-ending wait, and how the mourning is solved only when the missing person is found dead or alive. The discovery of a corpse is traumatic but it allows mourners to fully recognise their grief. When a person is found, it changes the relationship in a positive way. When neither of these events happen, mourners have two different kinds of reactions: they experience either a prolonged grief or a drive to solve their suffering by helping other people (post-traumatic growth). In this study, it is highlighted how a community can be useful or detrimental in this process, and the importance of psychological and social support to prevent significant clinical outcomes is stressed.

Lack of Truth-Telling in Palliative Care and Its Effects among Nurses and Nursing Students

Unclear communication of inauspicious prognoses may disorientate both patients and their relatives, drastically jeopardizing the planning of palliative care. This paper considers the issue of truth-telling in the communicative problems of nurses and students of nursing with terminally ill patients. The fundamental objective is the analysis of the difficulties related to the lack of truth-telling and how it might impact their professional and personal lives. A qualitative study was realized, involving 47 participants, both nurses (25) and nursing students (22), working in palliative care units or in associations of volunteers for the assistance of oncological patients. The exploration was focused on the way they relate to patients who are not aware of their real health conditions and their consequences. Particular attention was paid to their opinions concerning what could be done in order to manage such problematic situations in the near future.

Beyond the Wall: Death Education at Middle School as Suicide Prevention

This study investigates the psychological effects of participation in Death Education (DeEd) by middle school children in two towns in northeast Italy in which suicides occur to a greater extent than in the rest of the region. The aims of the project "Beyond the Wall" were inherent to the prevention of suicide, address existential issues and enhance the meaning of life through positive intentions for the future and reflection on mortality. It involved eight classes (150 students in four classes in the experimental group; 81 in four classes in the control group) engaging with films, workgroup activities, photovoice and psychodrama. The constructs of resilience, emotional competency and psychological well-being were monitored with the Resilience Scale for Adolescents, the Hopelessness Scale for Children, the Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children and the Stirling Children's Well-being Scale. The DeEd intervention was found to be significantly related to some of the variables investigated, improving the students' ability to recognise emotions and communicate them verbally while maintaining stable initial characteristics, such as psychological well-being and positive expectations for the future.

Solastalgia's mourning and the slowly evolving effect of asbestos pollution: A qualitative study in Italy

In Italy, the problem of asbestos pollution is increasing in severity. In fact, in recent years, the number of people affected by asbestos-related illnesses has been growing because of the fibre's slowly evolving effects and its progressive pollution in the environment adjacent to the places where it is processed. Even though the physical consequences of asbestos are now quite clear, few studies have examined the psychological consequences of this kind of disaster. Since it is difficult to perceive its pathogenicity in daily life, this study was conducted in the affected areas of north-eastern Italy, using the qualitative research in psychology with 51 persons who experienced asbestos-related illnesses (19 sick persons and 37 relatives of sick persons). Their narratives described being rooted in a space contaminated by an invisible enemy. In particular, attention was paid to the consequent solastalgia, a kind of mourning arising from loss of place attachment. Results of the qualitative analysis revealed how the different phases of the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross DABDA (Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance) model of coping with death constitute such feelings, whereas the dual-process model of Stroebe and Schut emphasised how these people seem to be loss oriented because of their perceived lack of community restoration. A discussion of the relationships between attribution of responsibility, entirely external and mostly inscribed in the DABDA categories of ‛anger’ and ‛acceptance’, is presented, with further considerations about mourning and the need to improve specific psychological support in this field of environmental disaster.

The Meaning in Life in Suicidal Patients: The Presence and the Search for Constructs. A Systematic Review

Background and Objectives: Research on suicidal behavior (SB) has frequently focused more on risk factors than protective factors. Since the historic works of Viktor E. Frankl, who inquired how some Nazi concentration camps prisoners maintained their will to live though confronted with pervasive absurdity, Meaning in Life (MiL) has been interpreted as a potent resiliency factor. MiL then declined along a multitude of theoretical perspectives and was associated with various functioning domains of the individual. Surprising, few studies investigated the role of MiL on SB. We aimed to review and synthetize current literature on possible associations between MiL and SB, which included suicidal ideation (SI), suicidal attempts (SA), and completed suicide, focusing on two MiL constructs (the presence of MiL and search for MiL) from the Michael F. Steger’s recent conceptualization. Material andMethods: A systematic strategy following PRISMA guidelines was used to search for relevant articles in Pubmed/MEDLINE, Scopus, PsycINFO, and ScienceDirect (January 1980–February 2019) and yielded 172 articles, 37 of which met our inclusion criteria. Results: MiL emerged as a protective factor against SI, SA, and completed suicides, directly or through mediation/moderation models with other SB-related variables. When distinguishing the presence of MiL and the search for MiL, a consensual protective impact was described for the former. Data for the latter were less consistent but rather oriented towards a non-protective impact Conclusions: These findings could have clinical repercussions for SB prevention, in both suicide risk assessment refinement and psychotherapeutic interventions. Further research is needed to examine the dynamic interplay of the two constructs.

Domestic Violence Between Childhood Incest and Re-victimization: A Study Among Anti-violence Centers in Italy

The study focuses on a specific problem in the area of child sexual abuse (CSA), which is still under-researched: the relationship between incest and adult female re-victimization treatment within the ambit of domestic violence in Italian centers. About 112 anti-violence centers were contacted, but only 13 participated and only 16 psychologists were interviewed to reconstruct the biographies of 32 victims. The study aimed to examine if and how the service centers recognized and dealt with the problem of re-victimization among survivors based on psychologists' narrations. Findings showed that the description of perpetrators revealed not only sexual abuse was perpetrated, but also psychological and physical abuse. About half of mothers did not come to their daughters' aid and those who cooperated with the abusers had mostly suffered from CSA at a time in their life. Only three mothers did help their daughters in contacting the anti-violence centers. However, most of the service centers were not concerned with the relationship between incest and domestic re-victimization, while those who considered the problem, dealt with it only on the practitioner-patient level. In addition, despite the psychologists used professional and empathetic language, they disclosed their high emotional involvement and a genuine bewilderment. A discussion on the need to standardize the psychotherapeutic support given to these re-victimized women was presented, with a critique to the un-discriminated de-pathologization approach adopted by almost all anti-violence centers. In particular, we wanted to underline the fact that, although, this approach is useful in treating victims who were not abused during infancy, it could be insufficient for women who suffered from incest.