Islam and Mental Disorders of the Older Adults: Religious Text, Belief System and Caregiving Practices

This paper illustrates the impact of Islamic religious texts on dementia care in the Middle East. It examines how old age and older adults mental disorders are framed in the Quran and Hadith, and how these texts are transformed to belief ideologies and caregiving practices. The study uses a qualitative research methods, which include a review of all Islamic holy texts that address mental and cognitive changes associated with ageing, along with interviews with eight Sharia scholars and 37-Arab-Muslim families living in Qatar. Islamic texts command compassion and honouring of elderly parents and give care instructions. These texts are transformed into social practices and used as diagnostic and treatment tools.Other Information Published in: Journal of Religion and Health License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0See article on publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01094-5</p

Data_Sheet_1_Psychotic-like experiences among university female students in Qatar: A qualitative-phenomenological study.PDF

Background and aimsPsychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are hallucinatory or delusional experiences that fall below the threshold of a diagnosable psychotic disorder. Although PLEs are common across the spectrum of psychiatric disorders, they also have been commonly reported in the general population. In this study, we aimed to describe the types of PLEs experienced by university students in Qatar. Furthermore, we aimed to examine how students frame, explain, and deal with these experiences as well as understand how culture and religion may shape the way students attribute and respond to these experiences.MethodThis study used a qualitative phenomenological approach. For collecting the data, we conducted semi-structured interviews using the Questionnaire for Psychotic Experiences (QPE). The QPE is a valid and reliable tool to assess the phenomenology of psychotic-like experiences. The questionnaire was translated into Arabic and tested and validated in Qatar (a fast-developing Muslim country in the Arabian Peninsula). We conducted interviews in Arabic with 12 undergraduate female students at Qatar University (the only national university in Qatar). The interviewees were of different Arab nationalities. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and two authors conducted the content-thematic analysis separately, as a strategy to validate the findings. The study was part of a larger nationally funded project that was approved by the Qatar University Institutional Review Board. The approvals were granted before any interview was conducted.ResultsThe PLEs were prevalent in our non-clinical sample. The content-thematic analysis revealed the following main themes about these experiences: type, impact on daily function, frequency, immediate reaction, attribution style, assumptions about the root cause of these experiences, other associations, and religious links to experiences. The results also highlighted that religion and culture play a role in shaping the types of hallucinations and some delusions.ConclusionOur findings support the importance of culture and religion in relation to the types and explanations that students provided when describing PLEs. Notably, it was common among those who reported having these experiences to normalize and link PLEs to real-life events. This may be a defense mechanism to protect the self against the stigma of mental illness and from being labeled as “abnormal”.</p

COVID-19 exit strategy during vaccine implementation: a balance between social distancing and herd immunity

Currently, health authorities around the world are struggling to limit the spread of COVID-19. Since the beginning of the pandemic, social distancing has been the most important strategy used by most countries to control disease spread by flattening and elongating the epidemic curve. Another strategy, herd immunity, was also applied by some countries through relaxed control measures that allow the free spread of natural infection to build up solid immunity within the population. In 2021, COVID-19 vaccination was introduced with tremendous effort as a promising strategy for limiting the spread of disease. Therefore, in this review, we present the current knowledge about social distancing, herd immunity strategies, and aspects of their implementation to control the COVID-19 pandemic in the presence of the newly developed vaccines. Finally, we suggest a short-term option for controlling the pandemic during vaccine application.Other Information Published in: Archives of Virology License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0See article on publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00705-022-05495-7</p

sj-pdf-2-mde-10.1177_23821205241227327 - Supplemental material for Perceptions and Experiences of Pursuing Research Among Medical Students in Problem-Based Learning Curriculum: A Cross-Sectional Study from Qatar

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-2-mde-10.1177_23821205241227327 for Perceptions and Experiences of Pursuing Research Among Medical Students in Problem-Based Learning Curriculum: A Cross-Sectional Study from Qatar by Reem R Al-Subai, Muhammad Z Kaleem, Doaa Hassanien, Meral Eldestawy, Mahmoud N Hamwi, Engy Elsayed, Amal S Al-Kawari, Habib H Farooqi and Suhad Daher-Nashif in Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development</p

sj-docx-1-mde-10.1177_23821205241227327 - Supplemental material for Perceptions and Experiences of Pursuing Research Among Medical Students in Problem-Based Learning Curriculum: A Cross-Sectional Study from Qatar

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-mde-10.1177_23821205241227327 for Perceptions and Experiences of Pursuing Research Among Medical Students in Problem-Based Learning Curriculum: A Cross-Sectional Study from Qatar by Reem R Al-Subai, Muhammad Z Kaleem, Doaa Hassanien, Meral Eldestawy, Mahmoud N Hamwi, Engy Elsayed, Amal S Al-Kawari, Habib H Farooqi and Suhad Daher-Nashif in Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development</p