Mental illness stigma as a moderator in the relationship between religiosity and help-seeking attitudes among Muslims from 16 Arab countries.

BACKGROUND: Determining the potential barriers responsible for delaying access to care, and elucidating pathways to early intervention should be a priority, especially in Arab countries where mental health resources are limited. To the best of our knowledge, no previous studies have examined the relationship between religiosity, stigma and help-seeking in an Arab Muslim cultural background. Hence, we propose in the present study to test the moderating role of stigma toward mental illness in the relationship between religiosity and help-seeking attitudes among Muslim community people living in different Arab countries. METHOD: The current survey is part of a large-scale multinational collaborative project (StIgma of Mental Problems in Arab CounTries [The IMPACT Project]). We carried-out a web-based cross-sectional, and multi-country study between June and November 2021. The final sample comprised 9782 Arab Muslim participants (mean age 29.67 ± 10.80 years, 77.1% females). RESULTS: Bivariate analyses showed that less stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness and higher religiosity levels were significantly associated with more favorable help-seeking attitudes. Moderation analyses revealed that the interaction religiosity by mental illness stigma was significantly associated with help-seeking attitudes (Beta = .005; p < .001); at low and moderate levels of stigma, higher religiosity was significantly associated with more favorable help-seeking attitudes. CONCLUSION: Our findings preliminarily suggest that mental illness stigma is a modifiable individual factor that seems to strengthen the direct positive effect of religiosity on help-seeking attitudes. This provides potential insights on possible anti-stigma interventions that might help overcome reluctance to counseling in highly religious Arab Muslim communities.

Suicide literacy mediates the path from religiosity to suicide stigma among Muslim community adults: Cross-sectional data from four Arab countries.

BACKGROUND: The majority of research attention has been devoted to the link between religiosity and suicide risk, and a considerable amount of studies has been carried out on how stigma impacts individuals with mental health problems of different kinds. However, the interplay between religiosity, suicide literacy and suicide stigma has seldom been empirically researched, especially quantitatively. We sought through this study to redress the imbalance of research attention by examining the relationship between religiosity and suicide stigma; and the indirect and moderating effects of suicide literacy on this relationship. METHOD: A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted among Arab-Muslim adults originating from four Arab countries (Egypt: N = 1029, Kuwait: N = 2182, Lebanon N = 781, Tunisia N = 2343; Total sample: N = 6335). The outcome measures included the Arabic Religiosity Scale which taps into variation in the degree of religiosity, the Stigma of Suicide Scale-short form to the solicit degree of stigma related to suicide, and the Literacy of Suicide Scale explores knowledge and understanding of suicide. RESULTS: Our Mediation analyses findings showed that literacy of suicide partially mediated the association between religiosity and stigmatizing attitude toward suicide. Higher religiosity was significantly associated with less literacy of suicide; higher literacy of suicide was significantly associated with less stigma of suicide. Finally, higher religiosity was directly and significantly associated with more stigmatization attitude toward suicide. CONCLUSION: We contribute the literature by showing, for the first time, that suicide literacy plays a mediating role in the association between religiosity and suicide stigma in a sample of Arab-Muslim community adults. This preliminarily suggests that the effects of religiosity on suicide stigma can be modifiable through improving suicide literacy. This implies that interventions targeting highly religious individuals should pay dual attention to increasing suicide literacy and lowering suicide stigma.

Cross-cultural comparison of mental illness stigma and help-seeking attitudes: a multinational population-based study from 16 Arab countries and 10,036 individuals.

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that culture deeply affects beliefs about mental illnesses' causes, treatment, and help-seeking. We aimed to explore and compare knowledge, attitudes toward mental illness and help-seeking, causal attributions, and help-seeking recommendations for mental illnesses across various Arab countries and investigate factors related to attitudes toward help-seeking. METHODS: We carried out a multinational cross-sectional study using online self-administered surveys in the Arabic language from June to November 2021 across 16 Arab countries among participants from the general public. RESULTS: More than one in four individuals exhibited stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness (26.5%), had poor knowledge (31.7%), and hold negative attitudes toward help-seeking (28.0%). ANOVA tests revealed a significant difference between countries regarding attitudes (F = 194.8, p < .001), knowledge (F = 88.7, p < .001), and help-seeking attitudes (F = 32.4, p < .001). Three multivariate regression analysis models were performed for overall sample, as well as Palestinian and Sudanese samples that displayed the lowest and highest ATSPPH-SF scores, respectively. In the overall sample, being female, older, having higher knowledge and more positive attitudes toward mental illness, and endorsing biomedical and psychosocial causations were associated with more favorable help-seeking attitudes; whereas having a family psychiatric history and endorsing religious/supernatural causations were associated with more negative help-seeking attitudes. The same results have been found in the Palestinian sample, while only stigma dimensions helped predict help-seeking attitudes in Sudanese participants. CONCLUSION: Interventions aiming at improving help-seeking attitudes and behaviors and promoting early access to care need to be culturally tailored, and congruent with public beliefs about mental illnesses and their causations.

The impact of women violence on depression among female medical students at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia.

Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of domestic violence on depression among females' students of Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Settings and Design: A cross-sectional study conducted from 2019 to 2020. Methods and Material: An electronic questionnaire containing biographical data, 2 nd edition of Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and The NorVold Abuse Questionnaire (NorAQ) was sent to the participants. Statistical Analysis Used: Data were analyzed using SPSS version 24 with a statistical significance set at P < 0.05. Tests of significance measured using independent t test and Chi-square test. Results: The study included 214 female medical students and 11 interns aged 18 to 26 with a mean of 20.66 ± 1.725 years. Most women (92.4%) were single, and the highest responders (30.2%) were second-year students. Based on The NorVold Abuse Questionnaire (NorAQ), the prevalence of violence was 56.9%. The most common form of violence was emotional abuse (50.2%) and the highest combined types of abuse were emotional and physical abuse (14.7%). Based on BDI scale, the prevalence of depression amongst our sample was 32.9%; it was mild in 14.2%, moderate in 15.6% and severe in 3.1%. None of the types of abuse were significantly associated with depression. However, severe depression was highest amongst students/interns with history of emotional or sexual violence. Conclusion: More than half of the participants were subjected to domestic abuse throughout their lives. Emotional abuse was the commonest type followed by physical, sexual, and healthcare abuses, respectively. However, the present study demonstrated no significant association between abuse and depression.

Mental health in Yemen: obstacles and challenges.

The Republic of Yemen, on the south-western coast of the Arabian Peninsula, was formed in 1990 when North and South Yemen united. Yemen covers 527 970 km2. The capital is Sana'a. The country is divided into 20 governorates and one municipality. It has an elected president, an elected House of Representatives, and an appointed Shura Council. The president is head of state, and the prime minister is head of government. Suffrage is universal for people aged 18 and older. The population of Yemen according to the 2004 census is about 20 million, but recent years have seen the arrival of many refugees.