Publications by authors named "Leyla Akoury Dirani"

Background: Data on Emotion Dysregulation among youth in Lebanon is scarce. Given that Emotion Dysregulation is associated with psychopathology and has a negative impact on youth outcomes, there is a need to better understand the prevalence, clinical and demographic correlates of Emotion Dysregulation.

Methods: This study is a secondary analysis of the Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents in Lebanon Study which recruited 1517 youth and one parent from a nationally representative sample.

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According to recent accounts, bilingualism in childhood confers an advantage in a specific domain of executive functioning termed attentional disengagement. The current study tested this hypothesis in 492 children (245 boys; M = 10.98 years) from Canada, China, and Lebanon by testing for an association between language status and measures of attentional disengagement.

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Article Synopsis
  • Psychiatric disorders significantly impact children and adolescents globally, and Lebanon's first national study aimed to assess the prevalence of these disorders amidst its ongoing challenges.
  • The study involved a stratified sample of 1517 individuals aged 5 to 17, using various self-reported questionnaires to identify potential psychiatric disorders.
  • Results showed that about 32.7% screened positive for at least one disorder, with only 5% seeking professional help; factors like academic struggles, chronic illnesses, high parental stress, and bullying increased the likelihood of screening positive, while higher family income was linked to a lower risk.
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Parenting programs aim to help parents and carers enhance their skills and ameliorate infants' and toddlers' wellbeing. In Lebanon and other Arab countries, contextualized group-based parenting programs addressing parents' mental wellbeing, parenting styles, and child development are quite rare. Therefore, a Preventive Parenting Program consisting of 7 sessions has been designed by local experts for the local cultural context.

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In Lebanon, approximately one in four adolescents suffers from a psychiatric disorder. Alarmingly, 94% of adolescents with a mental disorder have not sought any treatment. This study assessed the effectiveness of an evidence-based school-based universal mental health intervention (the FRIENDS program) in reducing depression and anxiety symptoms in middle school students in Lebanon.

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The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is a highly stressful environment for parents. The Parental Stressor Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (PSS: NICU) has been validated and used in several languages aside Arabic. This study aimed at translating the scale to Arabic (A-PSS: NICU) and validating it using a cohort of parents of infants admitted to the NICU.

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Early childhood mental health programs are vital for the current and future mental health and brain development of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Founded in 2014, Safe Start is the only early childhood mental health program in Beirut, Lebanon. It aims at being the prototype of such services at the national level.

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The Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon required a fast and efficient comprehensive rescue strategy. Professionals working in emergency response were neither prepared to provide psychological first aid nor prepared to screen for mental health disorders in child refugees. This article examines the efficacy of a national training program in psychological first aid (PFA) to enhance the readiness of mental health field workers in the Syrian refugee response.

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Although "intellectual disability" has widely replaced the term "mental retardation", the debate as to whether this entity should be conceptualized as a health condition or as a disability has intensified as the revision of the World Health Organization (WHO)'s International Classification of Diseases (ICD) advances. Defining intellectual disability as a health condition is central to retaining it in ICD, with significant implications for health policy and access to health services. This paper presents the consensus reached to date by the WHO ICD Working Group on the Classification of Intellectual Disabilities.

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