The rise of mindfulness and its resonance with the Islamic tradition

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Mindfulness-based interventions have grown in prominence over the past decade. Evidence of their efficacy has been an important driver of their widespread acceptance and proliferation. Although secularised, these mindfulness-based interventions are derived from and influenced by Eastern spiritual traditions, particularly Buddhism. For this reason, there is a need to explore the acceptability of such approaches among individuals firmly committed to theistic traditions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This article examines the rise of mindfulness-based interventions, exploring the sparse literature concerning the acceptability of such approaches among individuals with theistic perspectives divergent from both secular worldviews and Buddhist narratives. Finally, the article proposes several bridging concepts that might help practitioners of mindfulness-based approaches communicate key aspects of these interventions in a manner more culturally attuned and religiously resonant with the worldviews of Muslim clients

Conceptualising mental health in the United Arab Emirates: the perspective of traditional healers

© 2015, © 2015 Taylor & Francis. Substantial investments in health-care have ensured the widespread availability of allopathic medical services across the United Arab Emirates (UAE). However, in spite of this accessibility traditional healers (Mutawa) continue to play a significant, albeit, unofficial role in the UAE\u27s health sector. Citizens routinely consult traditional healers for problems that might, from a western biomedical perspective, be considered psychiatric conditions. This qualitative study explores traditional healers\u27 conceptualisations of mental health problems, discussing their perspectives on phenomenology, aetiology, intervention and outcome. Notably, traditional healers distinguished between biomedical illness and states they attributed to demonological or metaphysical causes. The Islamic spiritual narrative was central to discussions of aetiology, intervention and outcome. Greater integration of traditional healers within the UAE\u27s mental health-care services would, in many cases, improve patient experience and outcomes

Religiosity: Reducing Depressive Symptoms Amongst Muslim Females in the United Arab Emirates

Religiosity has previously been associated with greater wellbeing, as well as with lower rates of depressive disorders and less severe levels of depressive symptoms. Relatively few studies however, have explored this association in Muslim populations. The present study explores the relationship between religiosity and depressive symptoms amongst female citizens of the United Arab Emirates. Using a cross-sectional correlational design, a convenience sample of college students (N = 459) completed the Religious Conviction Inventory (RCI-10), adapted to the Islamic context, along with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). Both instruments demonstrated good psychometric properties and as hypothesized, religiosity was negatively correlated with depressive symptoms. Further, individuals categorized as experiencing severe depressive symptoms reported significantly lower levels of religiosity, compared to their asymptomatic counterparts. These findings lend further support to the idea that religiosity may act as a resilience-factor in the context of depression, extending this idea to female citizens of the United Arab Emirates. The findings of this study are understood in the context of the second wave of positive psychology, called PP 2.0, which looks at positive and negative factors in individual\u27s lives as both interact to produce positive clinical outcomes

Changing physical appearance preferences in the United Arab Emirates

Rapid economic growth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has impacted traditional ways of life rooted in Bedouin traditions and Islamic values. Research undertaken within the UAE suggests that a thin body-image ideal is widespread, as are abnormal eating attitudes and extreme dietary behaviours. However, this regional research has been exclusively cross-sectional, precluding conclusions about the temporal dynamics or nascence of these phenomena. This study explores changes in physical appearance preferences in the UAE over the past two decades. Interviews were undertaken with five khatabaat (marriage brokers), who were asked to report the attributes typically requested by those seeking wives, both now, and in the past. Thematic analysis of these data highlighted differences between the attributes currently deemed desirable, and those deemed desirable in the recent past. These findings are discussed in the context of the nation\u27s rapid socio-economic change, and their implications for body-image and eating-related problems. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis

Conceptualising mental health in the United Arab Emirates: the perspective of traditional healers

© 2015, © 2015 Taylor & Francis. Substantial investments in health-care have ensured the widespread availability of allopathic medical services across the United Arab Emirates (UAE). However, in spite of this accessibility traditional healers (Mutawa) continue to play a significant, albeit, unofficial role in the UAE\u27s health sector. Citizens routinely consult traditional healers for problems that might, from a western biomedical perspective, be considered psychiatric conditions. This qualitative study explores traditional healers\u27 conceptualisations of mental health problems, discussing their perspectives on phenomenology, aetiology, intervention and outcome. Notably, traditional healers distinguished between biomedical illness and states they attributed to demonological or metaphysical causes. The Islamic spiritual narrative was central to discussions of aetiology, intervention and outcome. Greater integration of traditional healers within the UAE\u27s mental health-care services would, in many cases, improve patient experience and outcomes

Initial invasive or conservative strategy for stable coronary disease

BACKGROUND Among patients with stable coronary disease and moderate or severe ischemia, whether clinical outcomes are better in those who receive an invasive intervention plus medical therapy than in those who receive medical therapy alone is uncertain. METHODS We randomly assigned 5179 patients with moderate or severe ischemia to an initial invasive strategy (angiography and revascularization when feasible) and medical therapy or to an initial conservative strategy of medical therapy alone and angiography if medical therapy failed. The primary outcome was a composite of death from cardiovascular causes, myocardial infarction, or hospitalization for unstable angina, heart failure, or resuscitated cardiac arrest. A key secondary outcome was death from cardiovascular causes or myocardial infarction. RESULTS Over a median of 3.2 years, 318 primary outcome events occurred in the invasive-strategy group and 352 occurred in the conservative-strategy group. At 6 months, the cumulative event rate was 5.3% in the invasive-strategy group and 3.4% in the conservative-strategy group (difference, 1.9 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.8 to 3.0); at 5 years, the cumulative event rate was 16.4% and 18.2%, respectively (difference, 121.8 percentage points; 95% CI, 124.7 to 1.0). Results were similar with respect to the key secondary outcome. The incidence of the primary outcome was sensitive to the definition of myocardial infarction; a secondary analysis yielded more procedural myocardial infarctions of uncertain clinical importance. There were 145 deaths in the invasive-strategy group and 144 deaths in the conservative-strategy group (hazard ratio, 1.05; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.32). CONCLUSIONS Among patients with stable coronary disease and moderate or severe ischemia, we did not find evidence that an initial invasive strategy, as compared with an initial conservative strategy, reduced the risk of ischemic cardiovascular events or death from any cause over a median of 3.2 years. The trial findings were sensitive to the definition of myocardial infarction that was used

Health-status outcomes with invasive or conservative care in coronary disease

BACKGROUND In the ISCHEMIA trial, an invasive strategy with angiographic assessment and revascularization did not reduce clinical events among patients with stable ischemic heart disease and moderate or severe ischemia. A secondary objective of the trial was to assess angina-related health status among these patients. METHODS We assessed angina-related symptoms, function, and quality of life with the Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ) at randomization, at months 1.5, 3, and 6, and every 6 months thereafter in participants who had been randomly assigned to an invasive treatment strategy (2295 participants) or a conservative strategy (2322). Mixed-effects cumulative probability models within a Bayesian framework were used to estimate differences between the treatment groups. The primary outcome of this health-status analysis was the SAQ summary score (scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better health status). All analyses were performed in the overall population and according to baseline angina frequency. RESULTS At baseline, 35% of patients reported having no angina in the previous month. SAQ summary scores increased in both treatment groups, with increases at 3, 12, and 36 months that were 4.1 points (95% credible interval, 3.2 to 5.0), 4.2 points (95% credible interval, 3.3 to 5.1), and 2.9 points (95% credible interval, 2.2 to 3.7) higher with the invasive strategy than with the conservative strategy. Differences were larger among participants who had more frequent angina at baseline (8.5 vs. 0.1 points at 3 months and 5.3 vs. 1.2 points at 36 months among participants with daily or weekly angina as compared with no angina). CONCLUSIONS In the overall trial population with moderate or severe ischemia, which included 35% of participants without angina at baseline, patients randomly assigned to the invasive strategy had greater improvement in angina-related health status than those assigned to the conservative strategy. The modest mean differences favoring the invasive strategy in the overall group reflected minimal differences among asymptomatic patients and larger differences among patients who had had angina at baseline