An acute respiratory syndrome (COVID-19), caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) with a high rate of morbidity and elevate mortality, has emerged as one of the most important threats to humankind in the last centuries. Rigorous determination of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity is very difficult owing to the continuous evolution of the virus, with its single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) variants and many lineages. However, it is urgently necessary to study the virus in depth, to understand the mechanism of its pathogenicity and virulence, and to develop effective therapeutic strategies. The present contribution summarizes in a succinct way the current knowledge on the evolutionary and structural features of the virus, with the aim of clarifying its mutational pattern and its possible role in the ongoing pandemic.
Background and objectives: This paper addresses psychological resilience, a multidisciplinary theoretical construct with important practical implications for health sciences. Although many definitions have been proposed in several contexts, an essential understanding of the concept is still lacking up to now. This negatively affects comparisons among research results and makes objective measurement difficult. The aim of this review is to identify shared elements in defining the construct of resilience across the literature examined in order to move toward a conceptual unification of the term. Materials and methods: A literature review was performed using the electronic databases ‘PubMed’ and ‘PsycINFO’. Scientific studies written in English between 2002 and May 2019 were included according to the following key terms: ‘Psychological’, ‘resilience’, and ‘definition’. Results: The review identifies five macro-categories that summarize what has been reported in the recent literature concerning the resilience phenomenon. They serve as a preliminary and necessary step toward a conceptual clarification of the construct. Conclusions: We propose a definition of psychological resilience as the ability to maintain the persistence of one’s orientation towards existential purposes. It constitutes a transversal attitude that can be understood as the ability to overcome the difficulties experienced in the different areas of one’s life with perseverance, as well as good awareness of oneself and one’s own internal coherence by activating a personal growth project. The conceptual clarification proposed will contribute to improving the accuracy of research on this topic by suggesting future paths of investigation aimed at deeply exploring the issues surrounding the promotion of resilience resources.
The literature still lacks a review regarding PROs applied for rhinoplasty. Thus, we performed a systematic review of the literature to identify PROMs that assess patient satisfaction and quality of life after rhinoplasty. The aim of our study was to identify existing questionnaires and to summarize their development, psychometric properties, and content. A multi-step search of the web-based PubMed database from the National Library of Medicine was performed to identify PROMs that are designed to evaluate satisfaction and quality of life following rhinoplasty. Each potential PROM was examined by three independent reviewers for adherence to inclusion/exclusion criteria. Questionnaires included in the analysis were appraised for their adherence to international guidelines for the development and validation of health outcome questionnaires, as outlined by the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Medical Outcome Trust and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Our search generated a total of 457 articles, 351 that were retrieved in the primary search, and 106 that were found in the references of the first set of articles. The process of development and validation of each of the included PROMs was examined. Only ten of these were identified as surgery-specific questionnaires about rhinoplasty. These were divided into three categories: (1) functional self-assessment (Nasal Surgical Questionnaire, Nasal Obstruction Symptoms Evaluation Scale, and Nasal Obstruction Septoplasty Effectiveness); (2) aesthetic self-assessment (Utrecht Questionnaire, FACE-Q rhinoplasty module, Glasgow Benefit Inventory); and (3) aesthetic and functional self-assessment (Rhinoplasty Outcomes Evaluation), Functional Rhinoplasty Outcome Inventory 17, RHINO Scale, and Evaluation of Aesthetic Rhinoplasty Scale).
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