Validation of the Coping With Discrimination Scale among Arab/Middle Eastern North African Americans.

OBJECTIVES: Arab/Middle Eastern North African (MENA) Americans experience high levels of discrimination, which is associated with greater engagement in coping strategies to alleviate the stress. The Coping with Discrimination Scale (CDS; Wei, Alvarez, et al., 2010) remains one of the only measures that assesses responses to discrimination. Given the difficulties of conducting research with Arab/MENA groups, few measures have been validated for use with this population. Thus, the purpose of this study is to validate the CDS among Arab/MENA Americans. METHOD: The sample consisted of 297 Arab/MENA Americans (n = 139, Christian; n = 158, Muslim). Overall, 143 individuals identified as men and 154 identified as women. The sample's average age was 31.2 years old (SD = 9.5). Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to assess the preassigned factor structure. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the CDS five-factor structure among Arab/MENA participants. All models resulted in poor fit. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was then conducted to identify factors relevant to Christian and Muslim MENA Americans. EFA results were largely similar for both groups and two factors emerged: adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies. Preliminary reliability and incremental validity was explored. Specifically, adaptive (ß = -0.11, p = .009) and maladaptive coping (ß = 0.52, p < .001) predicted anxiety after accounting for participants' experiences of discrimination. CONCLUSION: This study has implications for utilization of the CDS, with the EFA suggesting a more fitting two-factor structure (maladaptive and adaptive coping) and sensitive interpretation of the scale with Arab/MENA populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Alloantibodies to a paternally derived RBC KEL antigen lead to hemolytic disease of the fetus/newborn in a murine model.

Exposure to nonself red blood cell (RBC) antigens, either from transfusion or pregnancy, may result in alloimmunization and incompatible RBC clearance. First described as a pregnancy complication 80 years ago, hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN) is caused by alloimmunization to paternally derived RBC antigens. Despite the morbidity/mortality of HDFN, women at risk for RBC alloimmunization have few therapeutic options. Given that alloantibodies to antigens in the KEL family are among the most clinically significant, we developed a murine model with RBC-specific expression of the human KEL antigen to evaluate the impact of maternal/fetal KEL incompatibility. After exposure to fetal KEL RBCs during successive pregnancies with KEL-positive males, 21 of 21 wild-type female mice developed anti-KEL alloantibodies; intrauterine fetal anemia and/or demise occurred in a subset of KEL-positive pups born to wild type, but not agammaglobulinemic mothers. Similar to previous observations in humans, pregnancy-associated alloantibodies were detrimental in a transfusion setting, and transfusion-associated alloantibodies were detrimental in a pregnancy setting. This is the first pregnancy-associated HDFN model described to date, which will serve as a platform to develop targeted therapies to prevent and/or mitigate the dangers of RBC alloantibodies to fetuses and newborns.