Background: While in the last 5 years several studies have been conducted in Italy on the prevalence of mental disorders in adults, to date no epidemiological study has been targeted on mental disorders in adolescents. Method: A two-phase study was conducted on 3,418 participants using the child behavior checklist/6–18 (CBCL) and the development and well-being assessment (DAWBA), a structured interview with verbatim reports reviewed by clinicians. Results: The prevalence of CBCL caseness and DSM-IV disorders was 9.8% (CI 8.8–10.8%) and 8.2% (CI 4.2–12.3%), respectively. DSM-IV Emotional disorders were more frequently observed (6.5% CI 2.2–10.8%) than externalizing disorders (1.2% CI 0.2–2.3%). In girls, prevalence estimates increased significantly with age; furthermore, living with a single parent, low level of maternal education, and low family income were associated with a higher likelihood of suffering from emotional or behavioral problems. Conclusions: Approximately one in ten adolescents has psychological problems. Teachers and clinicians should focus on boys and girls living with a single parent and/or in disadvantaged socioeconomic conditions

A substantial genetic contribution in the etiology of developmental dyslexia (DD) has been well documented with independent groups reporting a susceptibility locus on chromosome 15q. After the identification of the DYX1C1 gene as a potential candidate for DD, several independent association studies reported controversial results. We performed a family-based association study to determine whether the DYX1C1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that have been associated with DD before, that is SNPs '23GA' and '1249GT', influence a broader phenotypic definition of DD. A significant linkage disequilibrium was observed with 'Single Letter Backward Span' (SLBS) in both single-marker and haplotype analyses. These results provide further support to the association between DD and DYX1C1 and it suggests that the linkage disequilibrium with DYX1C1 is more saliently explained in Italian dyslexics by short-term memory, as measured by 'SLBS', than by the categorical diagnosis of DD or other related phenotypes.

We applied a family-based association approach to investigate the role of the DYX1C1 gene on chromosome 15q as a candidate gene for developmental dyslexia (DD) to 158 families containing at least one dyslexic child. We directly sequenced exons 2 and 10 of the DYX1C1 gene and found eight single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs), three of which (À3G4A, 1249 G4T, 1259 C4G) were suitable for the genetic analyses. We performed single-and multimarker association analyses with DD as a categorical trait by FBAT version 1.4 and TRANSMIT version 2.5.4 programs. Our sample had a power of at least 80% to detect an association between the selected phenotypes and the informative polymorphisms at a significance level of 5%. The results of the categorical analyses did not support the involvement of the DYX1C1 gene variants in this sample of dyslexics and their relatives. Quantitative and multimarker analyses, which provide greater power to detect loci with a minor effect, consistently yielded nonsignificant results. While D1X1C1 is a good candidate gene for DD, we were unable to replicate the original findings between DYX1C1 gene and DD, perhaps due to genetic heterogeneity.

The impact of socioeconomic status (SES) and genetic polymorphisms on individual differences for externalized behaviors have often been investigated separately in studies of children and adults. In a general population sample of 607 Italian preadolescents, we examined the independent and joint effects of SES and the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) and serotonin transporter linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) polymorphisms upon rule-breaking and aggressive behaviors measured with the Child Behavior CheckList/6-18. We found evidence, which was based on both one locus and two-loci genotype analyses, that low SES and DRD4 long and 5-HTTLPR long alleles, both alone and in interaction, are associated with higher aggressive behavior scores. The effects were similar but more modest and limited to one locus genotype analyses for rule-breaking behavior. Consistent with studies that showed the effects of societal moderators on the heritability of externalized behaviors across different segments of the population, we suggest that diminished social constraints associated with low parental SES may act as enhancers of the genetic influence of specific DRD4 and 5-HTTLPR alleles over aggressive behaviors in preadolescence.

The Italian preadolescent mental health project (PrISMA--Progetto Italiano Salute Mentale Adolescenti) is the first Italian study designed to estimate the prevalence of mental disorders in preadolescents (10-14 years old) living in urban areas, and to analyse the demographic and biological correlates of emotional and behavioural problems. This paper describes the rationale, methods and the analysis plan of the project. The design of the study used a two-stage sampling procedure, one screening stage of emotional and behavioural problems in a large sample of subjects attending public and private schools and a second stage of diagnostic assessment in a sample including all high scorers and a proportion of low scorers. In the screening stage, parents of preadolescents were asked to fill in the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), whereas in the second stage preadolescents and their parents were administered the Development and Well Being Assessment for the assessment of mental disorders together with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and two scales (C-GAS and HoNOSCA) designed to evaluate the functioning of the preadolescent in different areas. Genetic samples were collected during the screening stage, after parents gave their informed written consent. The findings of this study are expected to allow an adequate planning of interventions for the prevention and the treatment of mental disorders in preadolescence as well as efficient health services.

No abstract

A putative hazard factor impinging on individual risk at the family-wide level, namely family structure, appears to act interactively with two pivotal serotonergic genes in heightening risk for Affective Problems. Although it remains to be demonstrated that belonging to a one- rather than a two-parent family has true environmental causal effects on Affective Problems, these data may contribute to identify/prevent risk for depression in childhood.

Dopamine genes are candidate genes for dyslexia in the light of the well-known comorbidity between dyslexia and ADHD. Within-family association and linkage disequilibrium were tested between four genetic markers at DRD4, DRD3, DRD2, and DAT loci, and dyslexia, in a sample of 130 Italian dyslexic children, 16.9% of whom had comorbid ADHD. No evidence of either association or linkage disequilibrium was found, neither in the total sample nor in the comorbid subgroup. Negative results do not support a common genetic basis between these two disorders for these markers.