An Examination of the Impact of Domestic Abuse on Qatari Women’s Mental Health

Domestic abuse against women can lead to developing mental health problems such as PTSD, Depression, or Anxiety which if not addressed can lead to serious consequences such as homicide. The primary objective of the study was to assess the occurrence of various forms of domestic abuse and investigate how domestic violence impacts the mental well-being of Qatari women. This was accomplished through the evaluation of the frequency of mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To achieve study objectives, an explanatory sequential mixed approach was used. The overreaching research question was conceptualized to be reflected in the primary and subcategory objectives to understand domestic abuse against women in Qatar. The primary research questions were: (1) What forms of domestic abuse are prevalent and are experienced by Qatari women? (2) How does experiencing domestic abuse impact the emergence of mental health issues like PTSD, depression, and anxiety? The subcategory research questions were: (3) What factors are associated with the women’s likelihood of experiencing intimate partner violence? And the subcategory question included: (4) How is woman’s mindset associated with their risk of experiencing Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) (5) Are abused women at an elevated risk of homicide? (6) Why do abused women remain in an abusive relationship? To answer these research questions, a quantitative survey with several measurement items were employed. The measurement scales for the Conflict Tactical Scale-2 and Economic Abuse Scale-12 were used to measure forms of abuse. Anxiety, depression, and PTSD were evaluated using mental health scales of the PHQ-9, Tylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, and the PCL-C civilian version respectively. The researcher collected quantitative survey from mental health services organisations, family counselling centres, shelters for domestic abuse victims, university students, and public domain located in Qatar. Overall, three hundred fifty (350) victims of domestic abuse in the past year gave their consent, and 165 women fulfilled the study’s requirements to assess the prevalence of domestic abuse and its effects on women’s mental health; to examine factors associated with victims of domestic abuse and effects of women’s mindset on the risk of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) victimization. Significant key findings were found from quantitative phases showing that psychological aggression and economic abuse were the most reported forms of abuse whereas physical assault and sexual coercion and injury were the least reported kinds of abuse among the participants. Also, exposure to different forms of abuse was associated with increased risk of acquiring PTSD, Depression, and Anxiety. It was additionally affirmed that an age gap between the husband and wife, having a greater number of children, a husband with lower educational attainment, a history of family violence, and being married to a polygamous partner were all linked to a heightened risk of IPV victimization.Furthermore, results show that 50.9% of the victims had traditional and conservative attitudes while 49.1% tended towards more equal rights and hold a liberal mindset about women’s rights in society. Women with a pro-feminist mindset are at increased risk of experiencing a variety of kinds of domestic abuse. The finding could help in return to understand why women tend to adhere to a more conventional mindset to have less heated conflict in their lives. The risk of homicide was relatively low among the current sample as indicated by 78.8%. The low score represented at variable danger, the remaining 21.2% represents the presence of increased danger. Neither severe nor extreme danger in the current sample was reported which imply a high risk of homicide. The researcher further explored qualitatively why abused women remain inactive or passive in the abusive relationship to augment the results obtained from the quantitative phase. Twenty women participated in the qualitative phase, and all were interviewed from WAYAK Mental Health Friends Association. Eight themes emerged from the participants’ narratives in the qualitative phase centred around the individual, family, and societal factors. The eight themes were hopeless and psychological abuse, physical abuse, economic abuse during marriage and post-divorce, husband and wife socioeconomic status and risk of abuse, family pressure in marriage, bureaucracy and forms of divorce, family law and victims’ rights, and risk of developing PTSD, depression and anxiety. All these were established and supported by the quantitative findings. Those Distinctive patterns that emerged from the participants’ narratives rationalize and provide another line of thought on understanding women’s decision to remain in an abusive relationship. This was due to post-divorce arrangements in the family such as change in the child custody entitlement, victims’ poor financial resources, and concern about post-divorce financial and residential arrangements among divorced mothers. As in many other countries in the region, women domestic abuse is prevalent in Qatar and affects the victims’ mental health. Moreover, the present study highlights the imperative need for the Qatari government to implement substantial measures aimed at preventing domestic violence. This research contributes to the expanding body of literature on domestic abuse victims in the Middle East, an area that has historically received limited focus, notably in Qatar

Effect of the Environmental Parameters on the Distribution of Foraminifera in the Coastal Area of Ras Al Khaimah, U.A.E.

Twenty samples of sea water and twenty samples of sediment were collected from the off shore area of Ras AI-Khaimah to find out the relationships between environmental parameters, abundance of foraminifera, and ratio of living to dead foraminifera. Analysis of sea water for the environmental parameters includs, temperature, salinity and nutrient salts (nitrate, nitrite, silicate, phosphate and amonia). Organic mattar, and total carbonate were measured in the bottom sediments. Grain size analysis of the bottom sediments was done using seiving method. The foraminiferal species were picked, counted and photographed using the SEM. The ratio of dead to living forams was calculated. Rose Bengal dys was used to differentiate between dead and living foraminiferal tests. The maximum grain size value was found at station 20, while the minimum was at station 4. The average grain size is 1.24 Φ. Relationships were observed between mean size and the other parameters. The standard deviation (sorting) rangeds between moderately sorted to poorly sorted. Skewness ranges between 0.22 and -0.46. Complete linkage cluster analysis shows that the study area can be clustered into three groups. Group I includes stations numbers 20, 13, 5, 14, 11 and 3, group II contains stations numbers 7, 4, 16, 17, 18, 12 and 2, while group III contains stations numbers 15, 19, 9, 8 and 6. Grain size parameters indicates no indication about the similarities or dissimilarities between different stations. The highest water temperature was recorded at station 20 (27.4 salinity ranges between 34.95 and 35.86. For the organic matter station 7 shows the maximum content of organic matter, while station 17 has the minimum. For the nutrient salts, station 9 shows the maximum value for PO4 while station 4 has the lowest. For SiO3, station 1 presents the maximum value. On the other hand station 14 presents the lowest value in SiO3. Station 2 shows the lowest value for NO3 while stations 16 and 17 have the maximum values. The maximum value of NO2 is found at stations 11 while the minimum value is found at station number 7 and 20. The high phosphate concentrations that have been recorded is a response to the decay of phytoplankton and excretion of considerable amounts of phosphate by aquatic organisms. On the other hand, the decrease in phosphate concentrations can be related to the decrease in the internal influx of phosphate, with an increase in consumption by phytoplankton. The high silicate values that have been found in the extreme east and off the Al-Khor opening is probably due to increase of the dissolution rate of diatom frustules and their fragments in the bottom sediments. The low values for nitrite may be attributed to the increase of nitrite oxidation to nitrate and its reduction to ammonia. Station 8 showes the maximum foraminiferal individuals (39 1 individuals) while the minimum number (25 individuals) is found at station 2. The must common foraminifera are the agglutinated forams, porcellaneous forams are the second in abundance; while the hyaline shells are less common. The maximum number of dead foraminiferal individuals is 277 (station 13), while the minimum number is 5 individuals (station 2). Peneropolis plantus, Quinqueloculina neastrictula, Quinqueloculina cooki, Triloculina sp., Ammonia beccarii, Elphidium crispum and Texularia sp. are the main foraminifera assemblages found in the study area. Other Milliolina, Textularina and RotalIina also occur. The differences in the percentage of living foraminiferal tests may be a response to the nature of the bottom with the low values occurring in areas covered with seagrasses and halophytes. On the other hand, high percentages of living forams occur where algae, seagrasses and other plants disappear. Another possibility may be caused by the short lifespan of the benthic foraminifera. Another possible reason is the fact that some dead foraminiferal tests may be either recent deceased where the red color may be caused by the effect of Rose Bengal on the protoplasm. Temperature and salinity have little influence on the distribution of the foraminiferal tests. Except for silicate, no relationship can be noticed. With the decreasing of the silicate, both living and total foraminiferal species slightly decrease. Most of the foraminiferal assemblages fall within the normal marine to hypersaline marine marshes. During the present study, some stations contain high percentages of blackened foraminifera that could be attributed to the decomposition of organic matter as well as to the effect of pollution. It also may be due the reducing conditions beneath the sediment surface

Chemical Safety Board and Qatar Proposed Chapter

The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is a board responsible for carrying out investigations on chemical hazards and accidents that take place in the chemical industry in the United States of America. The Board consists of five appointed members by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and its members reached 35 professional staff in 2008. The mission of CSB is given to it by the Congress and no other agencies can influence or affect the Board’s activities as stated in the law. Its main purpose is to maintain the safety of the people and work environment in chemical plants. Once an accident has been selected for investigation, the CSB members follow a set of procedures to find out the causes of the accident and give recommendations to the industry and also to the regulatory agencies about what should be done to avoid such accidents. The completed investigations, as well as the current ones, are made available to the public in order to limit the number of accidents that take place in the chemical industry in the U.S. In this paper, a Qatar chapter of CSB, Qatar Safety Board (QSB), is proposed. Unlike CSB in the U.S., QSB will cover not only the accidents in the chemical industry, but also accidents that take place in the medical, industrial, sea and transportation sectors in Qatar. QSB will give recommendations to the industries on how to avoid the accidents. It will also try to raise awareness among everyone in the work environment in Qatar by making its reports on the accidents available, free-of-charge to the public. QSB will ensure a safer and healthier work environment in Qatar

Family Cohesion Index in Qatar

This project aims to understand the concept of family cohesion, and attempts to measure 'family cohesion' in Qatar. A questionnaire was adapted from several validated scales, testing many aspects related to this greater theme of family cohesion, such as parental and marital relationships, shared morals, work-family balance, family interaction, care and support, family conflict mechanisms, and levels of satisfaction. With the use of a statistical program (STATA), a descriptive bivariate analysis was conducted. Moreover, an inferential analysis was obtained to analyze the data by fitting a logistic regression model to test the hypothesis. The findings show that improved family support, the presence of shared morals, and greater family satisfaction led to increased family cohesion, and these relationships were statistically significant. In contrast, greater parental relationships with children were associated with lower family cohesion, possibly due to increased parental control, which creates challenges within the family. This study provides great insights pertaining to factors affecting family cohesion. Further research is required to unravel the family dynamics specific to Qatar

Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) Use in Primary Health Care Centers in A’Seeb, Muscat: A Clinical Audit

Objective: We sought to assess the trend of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use in primary health care institutions located in A’Seeb, a province in the capital city of Oman, Muscat. Additionally, we evaluated the relationship between a physician’s years of experience and the number of prescription issued, as well as the presence of risk factors and side effects in the patients who received these prescriptions. Method: A clinical audit was conducted in four primary health care centers in the Muscat region over a one-week period in April 2014. The target population included patients aged 18 years or over who attended one of the four health centers and were prescribed NSAIDs. Overall, 272 patients were recruited by systematic random sampling. The data were collected by two methods: direct face-to-face interviews and evaluations of the patient’s electronic medical file. The prescribing doctors were blind to the audit. The collected information included patients demographics, past and current medical history of related comorbidities, NSAID type, dose, duration and indications for use, concomitant warfarin or/and aspirin prescriptions, and co-prescription of gastroprotective agents. Results: In total, 15% of patients received an NSAID prescription: females were issued more prescriptions than males. The percentage of patients who received an NSAID prescription across the health centers ranged from 9% to 24%. The main reason for prescribing NSAIDs was musculoskeletal problems. The most frequently prescribed NSAID was ibuprofen. Sixteen percent of patients who received an NSAID prescription had a risk factor related to its use. The mean and median duration of the NSAID prescriptions of all types were 5.6 and 5.0 days, respectively. Physicians with a greater number of years experience prescribed more NSAIDs. Conclusion: Our study showed that the number of prescriptions of NSAIDs among various institutes varied, which could reflect the level of awareness concerning NSAID risks among the prescribing doctors. NSAIDs were prescribed for patients with comorbidities and patients with previously documented side effects without considering protective agents. Therefore, we suggest that the use of these medications is controlled, especially in high-risk populations

Parametric investigation of water loading on heavily carbonaceous syngases

An outwardly propagating spherical flame was used to characterise the influence of water loading on the premixed combustion of an applied high CO/H2 ratio syngas fuel blend (converter gas). A nonlinear extrapolative technique was used to obtain values of laminar flame speed for combustion with air, for varying temperature, pressure and equivalence ratio. With increased attention given to the accurate measurement of laminar flame speed, a concerted effort was made to quantify experimental uncertainty, and a detailed methodology is presented. Change in relative humidity was shown to have a substantial impact on laminar flame speed for the syngas, increasing measured values by up to 70% from the driest cases. This observed increase results from the dissociative influence of H2O addition, and enhancement in the formation of chain carriers that catalyse CO oxidation, increasing net heat release rate. In addition to relative humidity, the decoupled influences of initial temperature and pressure were investigated parametrically; holding the mass ratios of fuel and H2O constant for a step change in condition. Temperature rise was shown to enhance H2O induced acceleration, with greater relative change in heat release rate for a corresponding drop in flame temperature, and the opposite effect observed for increased pressure. The effect of water addition was shown to be non-monotonic, with flame speed reduction achieved at the highest water loadings for the hottest tests, and discussed as a function of initial CO/H2 ratio. Attention was given to the dominant reaction kinetics, with the performance of several published reaction mechanisms evaluated against experimental data using CHEMKIN-PRO; with flame speed consistently overpredicted when H2O was added to the mixture. A modified reaction mechanism is presented for the humidified combustion of high CO/H2 mixtures, changing the rate parameters of two chain branching reactions to give higher relative indeterminate H2O formation, and a reduction in OH carriers. Results obtained using the modified mechanism demonstrate improved agreement with all experimental data presented here and from a previous study, including changes in H2O concentration at elevated temperatures and pressures. The results also highlight relative humidity as a potential source of error in the experimental measurement of uL, significant for fuels comprising large CO fractions, but also potentially for other gaseous fuels, emphasising that relative humidity should be carefully considered when comparing experimental data

Métastases leptoméningées d’un adénocarcinome gastrique simulant un hématome extradural subaigu

Les métastases intracrâniennes sont de loin les tumeurs malignes les plus fréquentes du système nerveux central, puisqu’elles représentent un peu plus du quart des ces néoplasmes de l’adulte. Des formes simulant des méningiomes ou un hématome sous dural ont été décrites. Les métastases leptoméningées dans le cadre du cancer gastrique sont extrêmement rares. Observation: Un patient de 69 ans, ayant comme antécédent un adénocarcinome gastrique opéré il y a un an ; qui a présenté des céphalées rebelles aux antalgiques usuels et des troubles du comportement, faiblesse progressive de l’hémi-corps droit. L’examen neurologique trouve une hémiparésie spastique droite cotée à 4 /5 à prédominance brachiale, et un syndrome frontal. Un scanner et l’IRM cérébrale objectivaient une lésion extra-durale frontale gauche spontanément hyperdense à la TDM et en hyper signal T1 avec oedème à l’IRM. Une craniectomie frontale gauche effectuée, en urgence, a permis de découvrir une tumeur leptoméningée. L’examen histologique qui a confirmé l’origine gastrique. Discussion: Les métastases cérébrales se produisent dans environ 20% des patients atteints de tumeurs malignes. Le risque est plus élevé dans les cancers bronchiques et cancer du sein. Les métastases cérébrales des cancers gastriques sont extrêmement rares et diagnostiquées chez moins de 1% des patients touchés. La réponse au traitement est médiocre. Conclusion: Bien que son incidence ne soit que de 1%, mais il est particulièrement important d’en faire le diagnostic car, un traitement adapté spécifique combinant plusieurs armes thérapeutiques peut permettre une survie prolongée avec une bonne qualité de vie

Bioactive compounds and antibacterial activities in crystallized honey liquefied with ultrasound

The effect of ultrasound on the crystal size, phenols, flavonoids, Maillard products and antibacterial activity of crystallized honeys was studied. Three multifloral honeys (M), one monofloral (MO) and one honeydew (HD) honey were used. Ultrasound was performed at 42 kHz for different times (0, 5, 10 and 15 min). The antibacterial activities were tested against Salmonella typhimurium, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Listeria mono cytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. In all honeys, the parameters analyzed had significant dif ferences ((P < 0.05)). After 15 min of ultrasound the HD had increments of 44 mg of gallic acid/100 g of honey in phenols, and some M showed increase in flavonoids (5.64 mg of quercitin /100 g of honey) and improvement in inhibition against Salmonella typhimurium was 13.1%. In some honeys the correlation between phenols or fla vonoids and antibacterial activity were significant ((P < 0.05)). No correlation was found between Maillard products and antibacterial activity. The ultrasound treatment effect on the crystal size, phenols, flavonoid, Maillard products, and antibacterial activity of crystallized honeys were different in each honey.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Multiple adaptive mechanisms to chronic liver disease revealed at early stages of liver carcinogenesis in the Mdr2-knockout mice Cancer Res 66

Access the most recent version of this article at: doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-05-2937 Access the most recent supplemental material at