The Development and Validation of a Modesty Measure for Diverse Muslim Populations.

This paper reports on the multi-phase development of an English-language modesty measure for use among Muslim populations. The process yielded a 10-item measure that has high levels of internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α of 0.83), and has acceptable discriminant and predictive validity.

Adapting a religious health fatalism measure for use in Muslim populations.

Objective: Fatalism has been shown to influence health behaviors and outcomes among different populations. Our study reports on the adaptation of the Religious Health Fatalism Questionnaire for a Muslim population (RHFQ-M).

Design: The original RHFQ wording was modified for a Muslim context and cognitively tested in 6 focus groups (FG).

Pregnancy and inflammatory bowel diseases: Current perspectives, risks and patient management.

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are chronic idiopathic inflammatory conditions characterized by relapsing and remitting episodes of inflammation which can affect several different regions of the gastrointestinal tract, but also shows extra-intestinal manifestations. IBD is most frequently diagnosed during peak female reproductive years, with 25% of women with IBD conceiving after their diagnosis. While IBD therapy has improved dramatically with enhanced surveillance and more abundant and powerful treatment options, IBD disease can have important effects on pregnancy and presents several challenges for maintaining optimal outcomes for mothers with IBD and the developing fetus/neonate.

Gastric cancer in women: A regional health-center seven year retrospective study.

Aim: To investigate whether regional geography influences ethnic and gender trends for the development of gastric cancer (GC).

Methods: This retrospective analysis of the INVISION patient database at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport (LSUHSC-S), a southern United States regional hospital, was performed from 2005-2011. Using the international statistical classification of diseases 9 (ICD-9), inpatient, day surgery outpatient, and emergency outpatient diagnosis codes entered into medical records were used to identify GC patients.