Beliefs and Perceptions About Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment-Seeking and Decision-Making Behaviors Among Omani Patients with Cancer: A Single-Center Study

Journal of Religion and Health - A cancer diagnosis is associated with anxiety and psychological distress. Cultural and societal factors greatly affect the complex process of coping mechanisms and...     

Can religiosity boost meaning in life and suppress stress for Muslim college students?

The aim of this study was to predict the quality and meaning in life from the level of religiousness. Also, the two variables were used to predict stress and stress-related problems at family and personal levels. To achieve the objectives of the study, 344 Muslim college students from Oman responded to tailored questionnaire. The questionnaire encompassed three major subscales: religiousness, meaning in life and stress-related problems. Religiousness consisted of three constructs; and stress consisted of four constructs: personal, emotional, family, and confidence problems. The constructs within each subscale revealed acceptable validity and reliability. The results revealed that the religiousness construct strongly linked to meaning in life, but guilt feelings and non-religiosity were not. Whereas positively predicted meaning in life, religiousness was only indirectly negatively related to the stress constructs. Non-religiosity linked to all stress constructs. An important implication of this study is that Islam is a cornerstone in the life of Muslims and can be employed in counselling and rehabilitation programmes.     

Arab Americans With Disabilities and Their Families: A Culturally Appropriate Approach for Counselors

The authors present a brief introduction to Americans of Arab descent and a brief overview of Arab culture. Then, culturally appropriate counseling considerations related to family, attitudes toward disability, religion, communication, acculturation, help‐seeking behaviors, and stereotypes are highlighted. In the last section, the authors provide conclusions and recommendations for culturally appropriate considerations in working with Arab Americans with disabilities and their families. Los autores presentan una breve introducción sobre los americanos de origen árabe y un breve resumen de la cultura árabe. Después, se destacan consideraciones para la consejería culturalmente apropiada relacionadas con la familia, actitudes sobre discapacidad, religión, comunicación, aculturación, comportamientos de búsqueda de ayuda, y estereotipos. En la última sección, los autores proporcionan conclusiones y recomendaciones para consideraciones culturalmente apropiadas a la hora de trabajar con americanos de origen árabe con discapacidades y sus familias.     

Cross‐national comparisons of attitudes towards suicide and suicidal persons in university students from 12 countries

This paper reports the results of a comparative investigation of attitudes to suicide and suicidal persons in 5,572 university students from 12 countries. Participants filled out two scales measuring attitudes towards suicide and suicidal persons, a measure of psychological distress together with the questions about suicidal behavior. Results showed that the highest suicide acceptance scores were observed in Austrian, UK, Japanese and Saudi Arabian samples and the lowest scores were noted in Tunisian, Turkish, Iranian and Palestinian samples. While the highest social acceptance scores for a suicidal friend were noted in Turkish, US, Italian and Tunisian samples, the lowest scores were seen in Japanese, Saudi Arabian, Palestinian and Jordanian samples. Compared to participants with a suicidal past, those who were never suicidal displayed more internal barriers against suicidal behavior. Men were more accepting of suicide than women but women were more willing to help an imagined suicidal peer. Participants with accepting attitudes towards suicide but rejecting attitudes towards suicidal persons reported more suicidal behavior and psychological distress, and were more often from high suicide rate countries and samples than their counterparts. They are considered to be caught in a fatal trap in which most predominant feelings of suicidality such as hopelessness or helplessness are likely to occur. We conclude that in some societies such as Japan and Saudi Arabia it might be difficult for suicidal individuals to activate and make use of social support systems.     

The assessment of surgery-related coping: The coping with surgical stress scale (COSS)

Abstract

Surgery can be regarded as a major stressor for any patient. High preoperative emotional arousal may negatively influence adjustment during surgery as well as the postoperative recovery rate. Consequently, the strategies individuals employ for coping with this stress are of prime importance for the quality of their adaptation. This paper reports the construction and empirical assessment of a new instrument for measuring strategies employed to cope with surgical stress. Factor analysis of this instrument, the Coping with Surgical Stress Scale (COSS), yielded five factors: Rumination, Optimism and Trust, Turning to Social and Religious Resources, Threat Avoidance, and Information Seeking. Internal consistencies of the corresponding subscales were satisfactory. Results concerning external relationships of the COSS with dispositional coping, state and trait anxiety, and indicators of perioperative adjustment showed that the COSS is a useful instrument for measuring surgery-related coping.     

Structural and socio-psychological influences on adolescents’ educational aspirations and subsequent academic achievement

Previous literature indicates that educational aspirations are an important predictor of achievement at school and beyond. This paper examines the factors that are associated with high educational aspirations. It also looks at the relationship between aspirations and achievement at the General Certificate of Secondary Education in a deprived area of London. The results show that educational aspirations are associated with individual characteristics. Girls were more likely than boys to express a wish to remain in education beyond the age of 16. For the most academic route post-16, there were substantial ethnic differences, with minority ethnic groups generally being more likely to state a desire to follow this path. Students who were eligible for free school meals tended to have lower aspirations. Socio-psychological variables were also shown to be of importance, particularly self-esteem and psychological distress. Importantly, educational aspirations had a strong association with actual achievement at age 16, remaining associated even after controlling for a number of other variables, including prior achievement. These findings are discussed in light of previous research and potential intervention strategies.     

Reconsidering the “aspiration–expectation gap” and assumed gender differences among urban youth

The present study investigated the relevance of the “aspiration–expectation gap” and traditional gender differences among urban youth in middle school and high school (N = 294). Results failed to indicate a significant difference between the occupational prestige levels of aspired and expected careers, but did indicate a significant difference between aspired and expected levels of education. In general, the proportion of girls significantly outweighed the proportion of boys in traditionally “masculine” occupations with high levels of prestige; girls also had higher levels of occupational prestige than boys in terms of careers they hoped and expected to obtain. Black and bi/multi-racial youth expected to have higher levels of education than White youth.