Gendered narratives and cultural shifts: A qualitative study on decadal changes in community alcohol consumption.

Alcohol consumption has been a central practice in Sabah, Malaysia. However, this region has witnessed a nuanced shift in drinking habits over the last decade, raising concerns about the health, economic, and social implications of alcohol use within the community in Sabah. This study explores the impact of gender narratives and cultural transformations on alcohol consumption within Sabah over the last decade.

Development of a scale to measure shared problem-solving and decision-making in mental healthcare.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to create a measure of collaborative processes between healthcare team members, patients, and carers.

Methods: A shared decision-making scale was developed using a qualitative research derived model and refined using Rasch and factor analysis. The scale was used by staff in the hospital for four consecutive years (n = 152, 121, 119 and 121) and by two independent patients' and carers' samples (n = 223 and 236).

Efficacy of a single-session online ACT-based mindfulness intervention among undergraduates in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: COVID-19 has trickle-down psychological effects on multiple strata of society, particularly university students. Apart from the worry of contracting or spreading COVID-19, Malaysian university students were also locked down on their campuses, suffering significant psychological distress. Hence, an online mindfulness intervention was proposed to alleviate psychological distress and improve psychological flexibility and mindfulness.

Ultra Brief Psychological Interventions for COVID-19 Pandemic: Introduction of a Locally-Adapted Brief Intervention for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Service.

The ultra-brief psychological interventions (UBPI) was created in 2018 to empower healthcare providers with psychological skills that can be delivered within a short period. Techniques used within UBPI were adopted from a variety of well established psychotherapies and distilled into its core essentials. This enabled practitioners of UBPI to deliver specific psychological skills in the appropriate context to the client within a period of 15-20 min.

The Behaviour Changes in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic within Malaysia.

The novel coronavirus infection, COVID-19, is a pandemic that currently affects the whole world. During this period, Malaysians displayed a variety of behaviour changes as a response to COVID-19, including panic buying, mass travelling during movement restriction and even absconding from treatment facilities. This article attempts to explore some of these behaviour changes from a behaviourist perspective in order to get a better understanding of the rationale behind the changes.

Reactions to symptoms of mental disorder and help seeking in Sabah, Malaysia.

Background: A better understanding is needed about how people make decisions about help seeking.

Materials: Focus group and individual interviews with patients, carers, healthcare staff, religious authorities, traditional healers and community members.

Discussion: Four stages of help seeking were identified: (1) noticing symptoms and initial labelling, (2) collective decision-making, (3) spiritual diagnoses and treatment and (4) psychiatric diagnosis and treatment.

Unrecorded Alcohol and Alcohol-Related Harm in Rural Sabah, Malaysia: A Socio-economically Deprived Region with Expensive Beer and Cheap Local Spirits.

Aim: To investigate recorded and unrecorded alcohol and the relation to alcohol-related harm in a region with high taxation, economic deprivation and cultural use of alcohol.

Methods: Two participants per household were systematically sampled from 12 different villages chosen using stratified random sampling in the North of Sabah, Malaysia. Participants were asked about each type and amount of drink consumed; price paid, whether tax was paid, number of days sick in the last year and whether they had experienced various health problems.

Cardiovascular diseases among patients with schizophrenia.

The presence of comorbid physical illnesses especially, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in schizophrenia is a growing area of concern in recent years. In order to reduce disease burden, to improve quality of life and to provide holistic care, it is important to know about the relationship between schizophrenia and CVD. The objective of this review is to explore the extent of CVD problems, relevant risk factors and potential measures for early diagnosis and prevention of CVD among patients with schizophrenia.