The Placement of Children in Need of Out-of-Home Care: Forms of Care and Differences in Attachment Security and Behavioral Problems in the Italian Context

The current paper investigated differences in secure attachment levels and behavioral problems among four groups of children in out-of-home care in Italy: closed adoption (child and birth parents not in contact following adoption), open adoption (child and birth parents still in contact after placement), foster care (child living temporarily with relatives or unrelated foster parents) and institutional care (child in residential care for large groups of children). One hundred and thirty children aged 10-19 were included in this study. The Attachment Interview for Childhood and Adolescence and the Achenbach Youth Self-Report were employed to measure participants' secure attachment levels and behavioral problems. Both a multivariate analysis of covariance and measured variable path analysis were performed. Age, gender and time elapsed between the request for child protection and placement on out-of-home care were used as covariates. The results showed that adolescents in closed adoption had higher secure attachment scores than those in foster care and institutional care, while adolescents in open adoption scored significantly higher on problem behaviors than those in the other out-of-home care groups. Findings were discussed in terms of limitations and implications for future research.

How Do Religiosity and Spirituality Associate with Health-Related Outcomes of Adolescents with Chronic Illnesses? A Scoping Review

The aim of the current scoping review was to explore the associations between religious and spiritual factors and the health-related outcomes of adolescents with chronic illnesses, as well as to investigate possible mechanisms accounting for these relationships. In total, 20 studies meeting the eligibility criteria were reviewed after performing a search of the Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases. The results suggested that religious and spiritual beliefs, thoughts, and practices (e.g., spiritual coping activities) might have both beneficial and deleterious effects on the way adolescents deal with their medical condition, on their psychosocial adjustment, on their mental and physical health, and on their adherence to treatments. Mediating and moderating mechanisms explaining these relations were also evidenced. Suggestions for future research and practical implications for healthcare professionals are provided in the concluding section of this work.

Maternal mind-mindedness during the first year of life: Developmental trajectories and moderators

Mind-mindedness (MM) refers to caregivers' proclivity to treat a child as having an active and autonomous mental life. It has been shown to be a powerful predictor of many developmental outcomes and to mitigate the impact of risk conditions. However, longitudinal studies on MM reporting changes over time and individual differences among mothers have been scant and quite inconclusive, mainly due to the investigation of changes between only two time points. The current study analyzes MM's developmental trajectories across four time points (3, 6, 9, and 12 months of infants' age) along with the moderating effects of four variables (maternal sensitivity, age, education, and family income). The sample included healthy mother-infant dyads (N = 93, 46 female infants), belonging to monolingual Italian predominantly middle-class families, with 15% (n = 14) classified as low income (below the relative poverty threshold). The dyads were videotaped during semistructured play interactions and transcripts were coded for appropriate mind-related comments (AMRCs) and nonattuned mind-related comments (NAMRCs). Mothers' AMRCs, compared to NAMRCs, showed more temporal stability. Both AMRCs and NAMRCs showed a linear decrease with individual differences across dyads decreasing over time, and dyads becoming increasingly similar one with the other. Low income moderated the normative trend of appropriate mind-related comments. These findings suggest that MM, while depending largely on an individual trait at earlier ages, when infants' mental states are less intelligible, adapts to the increase of infants' sociocommunicative repertoire over time. They also highlight the importance of ecological constraints on the quality of caregiving. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).