Health professionals' views and experiences of breaking bad news in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: a scoping review.

Introduction: Breaking bad news is a critical yet challenging aspect of healthcare that requires effective communication skills, empathy, and cultural sensitivity. Health professionals in the World Health Organization's (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Region face unique cultural and social factors distinct from other parts of the world. This scoping review aims to comprehensively explore the peer-reviewed literature on the health professionals' experiences in delivering bad news within the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Region.

A Qualitative Exploration of Health Profession Students' Experiences of Resilience and Burnout Using the Coping Reservoir Model during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

: The Coping Reservoir Model is a useful theoretical and analytical framework through which to examine student resilience and burnout. This model conceptualizes wellbeing as a reservoir which is filled or drained through students' adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanisms. This dynamic process has the capacity to foster resilience and reduce burnout or the inverse.

Experiences of burnout, anxiety, and empathy among health profession students in Qatar University during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study.

Background: The prevalence of burnout and anxiety is constantly increasing among health profession students worldwide. This study evaluates the prevalence of burnout and its relationship to anxiety and empathy during the COVID-19 pandemic among health profession students in the main governmental institution in Doha, Qatar using validated instruments.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of health profession students using validated instruments was employed.

The Association Between Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Exposure to Tobacco Smoking: A Case-Control Study in Qatar.

Objective: This research investigated the association between childhood and adulthood tobacco smoking exposure with ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) in Qatar.

Study Design And Setting: In this case-control study, CD and UC cases were matched to controls of the same age and sex. The associations between UC and CD and childhood passive smoking and adulthood active smoking were assessed using conditional multivariable logistic regression.

Does the Sex of the Firstborn Child Affect the Breast Cancer Risk and Survival: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Over 1 Million Cases.

Background: Reports on the risk and prognosis of breast cancer in relation to the sex of a child have been conflicting. Since medical sciences play an important role in informing sociocultural understandings of health and illness, evidence-based studies have the potential to foster or counter stigma and shape social attitudes toward a newborn’s sex.

Aims: To pool all available evidence to provide the highest level of evidence on the association between the sex of the first child and breast cancer risk or prognosis.

A culturally competent approach to teaching humanities in an international medical school: potential frameworks and lessons learned.

: This paper describes the development of a culturally competent medical humanities course for second and third-year medical students at the ethnically diverse College of Medicine at Qatar University. First taught in 2016, the elective seminar "Medicine and the Arts" was restructured in 2017 to cultivate an appreciation of the symbiotic relationship between medicine, art, and humanities, and to foster cultural competence among the students. : Results and tips are based on our experiences and past reports.

A Delphi consensus study introducing a Problem And attRibutes-bAsed DIabetes self-manaGeMent (PARADIGM) intervention for patients with type 2 diabetes.

Aim: Encouraging patients to improve their self-management behavior based on a strict definition of the intervention is important for a standardized delivery but, until recently, there was no consensus on the core attributes that define such an intervention. The purpose of this study is to generate a core-attribute based and stakeholder-informed problem-based curriculum for promotion of type 2 diabetes self-management structured around five core attributes derived from a previous concept analysis that defined the intervention.

Methods: Using a Delphi process for consensus achievement, physicians, clinical epidemiologists and allied health care professionals completed eleven rounds of online meetings over 6 months.

Breast Cancer Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices amongst Women in Qatar.

This cross-sectional study examines knowledge, attitudes, and practices surrounding breast cancer awareness and screening among women residents in Qatar. Females, >18 years old, registered with the Primary Health Care Corporation were invited to complete an Arabic or English online survey using a modified version of the Breast Cancer Awareness Module. Of the 9008 participants, 69% report awareness of breast cancer warning signs, but the results did not substantiate these claims.

Dementia caregiving in the Middle East and North Africa: A scoping review.

Care for persons with dementia in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is undertaken predominantly by family members, domestic workers, and private nurses within the home. Domestic caregivers possess different understandings and varying degrees of knowledge of dementia that are influenced by complex socio-cultural and religious factors. With much of the burden falling on the shoulders of "invisible" caregivers, the role and needs of these individuals require deeper scrutiny.

A program evaluation reporting student perceptions of early clinical exposure to primary care at a new medical college in Qatar.

Background: Though common practice in Europe, few studies have described the efficacy of early clinical exposure (ECE) in the Middle East. The barriers to clinical learning experienced by these novice medical students have not been reported. This evaluation reports on introducing ECE in primary care, supported by Experiential Review (ER) debriefing sessions.

Islam and Mental Disorders of the Older Adults: Religious Text, Belief System and Caregiving Practices.

This paper illustrates the impact of Islamic religious texts on dementia care in the Middle East. It examines how old age and older adults mental disorders are framed in the Quran and Hadith, and how these texts are transformed to belief ideologies and caregiving practices. The study uses a qualitative research methods, which include a review of all Islamic holy texts that address mental and cognitive changes associated with ageing, along with interviews with eight Sharia scholars and 37-Arab-Muslim families living in Qatar.

Construct Validity of an Instrument for Assessment of Reflective Writing-Based Portfolios of Medical Students.

Purpose: Assessment of reflective writing for medical students is challenging, and there is lack of an available instrument with good psychometric properties. The authors developed a new instrument for assessment of reflective writing-based portfolios and examined the construct validity of this instrument.

Methods: After an extensive literature review and pilot testing of the instrument, two raters assessed the reflective writing-based portfolios from years 2 and 3 medical students (n=135) on three occasions.