About
160
Publications
42,549
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
16,458
Citations
Publications
Publications (160)
Generally, university students are at risk of burnout. This likely was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to investigate burnout prevalence among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic and examine its distribution across countries, sexes, fields of study, and time-period. PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, World Health Organization...
Qatar is one of the few countries in the world with a dedicated national sports day. Qatar believes that sport is one of the best tools to promote a healthy lifestyle to help curb the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). With the well-established positive health effects of soccer on cardiovascular, metabolic, and musculoskeletal cond...
Background
Depression is a major population health challenge globally. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to (i) determine depression prevalence and (ii) identify the risk and protective factors of depression among healthcare workers (HCWs) in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR).
Methods
The protocol was registered on Open Science Fr...
Background
There is a worldwide shortage of health care workers. This problem is particularly severe in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries because of shortages in certain medical disciplines, due to a lack of nationally-trained professionals and a less developed educational system compared to other high income countries. Consequently, GCC...
Background:
Systematic review (SR) guidelines recommend extending literature search to gray literature in order to identify all available data related to the review topic. We aim to conduct an overview of SRs on population health in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), to assess the methodology of these SRs, to produce an evidence map highligh...
BACKGROUND: Zika virus, an emerging serious infectious disease, is a threat to persons living or travelling to regions where it is currently endemic, and to contacts of infected individuals. Qatar, located on the northeastern coast of the Arabian peninsula, harbors the primary vector species, Aedes aegypti for Zika virus. Additionally, Qatar Airway...
Background
Zika virus, an emerging serious infectious disease, is a threat to persons living or travelling to regions where it is currently endemic, and also to contacts of infected individuals. The aim of this study was to assess knowledge about this new public health threat to persons residing in a Middle Eastern country. Methods
We conducted a s...
Objectives
To determine optimum measurements for abdominal obesity and to assess the prevalence and determinants of metabolic syndrome in Qatar.
Design
National health survey.
Setting
Qatar National STEPwise Survey conducted by the Supreme Council of Health during 2012.
Participants
2496 Qatari citizens aged 18–64 representative of the general p...
Objectives:
To quantify by meta-analysis the relationship between waterpipe smoking and cancer, including cancer of the head and neck, esophagus, stomach, lung and bladder.
Methods:
We performed a systematic literature search to identify relevant studies, scored their quality, used fixed and random-effect models to estimate summary relative risk...
Background
Obesity is strongly associated with several non-communicable conditions including diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, and hypercholesterolemia. ¹ The global frequency of obesity and the metabolic syndrome has increased over the most recent decades and has been linked to an increase in the global burden of disease ² . According...
In Qataris, a population characterized by a small size and a high rate of consanguinity, between two-thirds to three-quarters of adults are overweight or obese. We investigated the relevance of 23 obesity-related loci in the Qatari population.
Eight-hundred-four individuals assessed to be third generation Qataris were included in the study and assi...
Objective
To estimate the prevalence of prediabetes in adolescents living in a high-risk country and to detect risk factors associated with this disorder.
Design
Survey questionnaire combined with physical measurements and blood sugar determination.
Setting
Doha, capital city of Qatar.
Participants
A total of 1694 male and female students aged 1...
Following the movement toward globalization by patients, providers, and healthcare institutions, the era of borderless medical education programs has finally arrived. Some well-known United States medical schools recently have established medical education programs overseas, while several others are currently being planned. This article describes t...
Objective:
The objective of this study was to investigate the association between maternal complications and postpartum depression (PPD) among postpartum women in Qatar by using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) as well as a structured questionnaire.
Methods:
This is a cross-sectional study of PPD of 1379 postpartum women within 6...
Depression is a common and disabling complication of postpartum women. There is a paucity of research on postpartum depressive disorders and their predictors in women from Arab countries.
The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and identify risk factors of postpartum depression among Arab women in Qatar using Edinburgh Postnatal Depre...
Translational Medicine (TM) in Qatar is part of a concerted effort of the Qatari medical and scientific leadership supported by a strong political will by Qatari authorities to deliver world-class health care to Qatari residents while participating in the worldwide quest to bridge the gap between bench-to-bedside-to-community. TM programs should em...
Postnatal depression has received considerable research and clinical attention; however, anxiety and stress in postpartum women have been relatively neglected.
The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress during the postpartum period of women using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales, and to examine the...
Background:
Scheduled exposure to bright light (phototherapy) has been used, with varying degrees of success, to treat sleep disruption in older individuals. Most of these studies have been done in institutional settings and have used several hours of daily light exposure. Such a regimen in the home setting may be untenable, especially when the in...
Despite their wealth and modern road systems, traffic injury rates in Middle Eastern countries are generally higher than those in Western countries. The authors examined traffic injuries in Qatar during 2000-2010, a period of rapid population growth, focusing on the impact of speed control cameras installed in 2007 on overall injury rates and morta...
Recent advances in medical technology and key discoveries in biomedical research have the potential to improve human health in an unprecedented fashion. As a result, many of the Arab Gulf countries, particularly Qatar are devoting increasing resources toward establishing centers of excellence in biomedical research. However, there are challenges th...
Background:
Sleep disturbance is common in caregivers of older adults with memory disorders. Little is known, however, about the implications of caregivers' poor sleep with regard to their physical functioning.
Methods:
In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the association between objectively measured sleep and self-reported physical fu...
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have witnessed over the last 40 years a rapid and major social, cultural, and economic transformation. The development of medical education in the region is relatively new, dating from the late 1960s. An important goal among the medical colleges in the region is to graduate national physicians who can po...
While it has been reported that persons with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) manifest tonic autonomic activation, the literature contains numerous counterexamples. In revisiting the question, this study employed a novel method of mattress actigraphy to unobtrusively estimate heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia over multiple nights of s...
To determine whether bright light can improve sleep in older individuals with insomnia.
Single-blind, placebo-controlled, 12-week, parallel-group randomized design comparing four treatment groups representing a factorial combination of two lighting conditions and two times of light administration.
At-home light treatment; eight office therapy sessi...
This paper (Part II) further illustrates how a staff needs assessment can serve as the foundation for ongoing collaborations between extended care unit staff and consulting clinical researchers. The first phase of the process involved gathering data via a series of semi-structured interviews with staff of a long-term care unit at the Veterans Affai...
Both insomnia complaints and anxiety disorders are common in older adults, and are associated with poor daytime functioning. The present study investigated whether subclinical levels of anxiety were associated with sleep disturbance and daytime functioning in older adults who met diagnostic criteria for primary insomnia, and therefore did not meet...
Poor sleep quality has been linked to functional impair-ment in several populations [1-4] but this association hasnot been investigated widely in family caregivers of olderadults with memory disorders. We investigated the associ-ation between objectively measured sleep and functionalstatus in a sample of family caregivers.
Because stresses associated with long-term care settings may exacerbate distress and aggression related to past trauma, we investigated self-report and staff reports of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and staff observations of verbal and physical aggression in 32 elderly males who were patients in a long-term care unit for veterans. Feelings...
To determine if results from randomized clinical trials of donepezil in Alzheimer disease (AD) patients can be applied to AD patients in clinical practice by comparing the findings from a Nordic one-year randomized AD donepezil trial with data from a one-year prospective, observational study of AD patients.
AD patients from a consortium of Californ...
Children and adolescents with maltreatment-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibit smaller intracranial tissue volume than controls. Linear relationships have also been observed between intracranial tissue volume and the age of maltreatment onset. The authors explored associations among adult PTSD, early trauma, and cerebral volumes in...
This article describes a method for extracting heart rate (HR) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) from the kinetocardiogram (KCG) recorded from accelerometers embedded in a mattress topper. Validation has been performed via comparison with simultaneously recorded ECG. All-night estimates of HR and RSA magnitude derived from both methods were hi...
This study compared the effects of duloxetine, 60 mg/day, versus placebo on cognition, depression, and pain in elderly patients with recurrent major depressive disorder.
Patients were randomly assigned (2:1) to duloxetine, 60 mg/day (N=207), or placebo (N=104) for 8 weeks in a double-blind study. The primary outcome measure was a prespecified compo...
Studies imposing rigorous control over lifetime alcohol intake have usually not found smaller hippocampal volumes in persons with posttraumatic stress disorder. Because the majority of negative studies have used adolescent samples, it has been suggested that chronicity is a necessary condition for such findings. To test the hypothesis that a smalle...
Studies imposing rigorous control over lifetime alcohol intake have usually not found smaller hippocampal volumes in persons with posttraumatic stress disorder. Because the majority of negative studies have used adolescent samples, it has been suggested that chronicity is a necessary condition for such findings. To test the hypothesis that a smalle...
The current study used Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) clinical records, State of California pesticide application records, spatial maps of distribution of Parkinson's disease patients, and pesticide applications to determine if there was evidence for "blow-in" of pesticides as a factor in explaining the prevalence of Central Valley Parkinson'...
Off-label prescribing of medications, polypharmacy, and other questionable prescribing practices have led investigators to examine a large VA pharmacy database to determine if physician prescribing decisions appear reasonable.
The current study addresses the question of physician prescribing of atypical antipsychotics in 34,925 veterans with schizo...
This paper provides a descriptive evaluation of group therapy for older combat veterans with severe, chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Eight older combat veterans with PTSD participated in a long-term supportive/cognitive-behavioral therapy group. Self-report measures of psychiatric symptomatology taken at baseline and two years hence r...
This article reports preliminary data on trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) prevalence, as well as test psychometrics, among 35 cognitively intact veterans residing in long-term care settings. Participants received a traumatic event screening, the Mini-Mental Status Examination, Combat Exposure Scale (CES), PTSD Checklist (PCL), and M...
This first of two papers illustrates how a staff needs assessment can serve as the foundation for ongoing collaborations between long-term care staff and consulting clinical researchers. The needs assessment was an example of a three-phase model of consultation and intervention to improve resident care and reduce staff burden in a psychiatric nursi...
This descriptive study examined reports of behavioral problems among older patients hospitalized in acute care medical settings.
Greater numbers of behavioral problems were reported by nursing staff on the Neuropsychiatric Inventory–Questionnaire than
were documented in medical charts over the same time period. Such underreporting may have clinical...
The frequent comorbidity of anxiety and depression, particularly among elderly, is widely recognized by clinicians, but the debate continues as to whether the combined diagnostic designation is merited. This article reviews the debate over the mixed diagnosis, discusses treatment implications, and reviews a small treatment study undertaken with eld...
Both sleep disturbances and anxiety are quite common in older adults. Although increasing research efforts have investigated sleep disturbances and anxiety in older adults, little has been written concerning the relation between sleep disturbances and anxiety in this population. This article reviews the epidemiological and clinical literature conce...
There is paucity of medical literature on the use of lamotrigine in elderly patients who have behavior problems and diverse psychiatric syndromes. This article is a retrospective case series summarizing the authors' experience with this medication. In a 20-patient case series from an institutional review board-approved retrospective chart review, t...
Little is known about how recent ISTSS practice guidelines (E. B. Foa, T. M. Keane, & M. J. Friedman, 2000) compare with prevailing PTSD treatment practices for veterans. Prior to guideline dissemination, clinicians in 6 VA medical centers were surveyed in 1999 (n = 321) and in 2001 (n = 271) regarding their use of various assessment and treatment...
The purpose of this study was to assess whether pharmacy database information from US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers could be used to screen for areas of higher Parkinson's disease prevalence in patients exposed to pesticides. The authors used pharmacy data sets and compared the use of antiparkinsonian medications at 2 VA medic...
This study examined the association of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with the quality of intimate relationships among present-day male World War II ex-prisoners of war (POWs). Ex-POWs had considerable marital stability; those with PTSD were no less likely to be in an intimate relationship. Ex-POWs in an intimate relationship who had PTSD (N=...
The authors compared young and older adults with panic disorder (PD) to investigate differences in panic-associated phenomenology, psychiatric comorbidity, and risk factors.
Patients in the older group (age 60 and above) were further subdivided into early- and late-onset groups and compared. Phenomenology (number of panic symptoms, severity of anxi...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a frequently unrecognized anxiety disorder in primary care settings. This study reports on the development and operating characteristics of a brief 4-item screen for PTSD in primary care (PC-PTSD). 188 VA primary care patients completed the PC-PTSD, the PTSD Symptom Checklist (PCL) and the Clinician Administe...
To report on the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of sertraline in the treatment of elderly depres-sed patients with and without comorbid medical illness.
Multicenter.
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
A total of 752 patients aged 60 and older with diagnosis of major depressive disorder according to Diagnostic and Statistical Ma...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients with comorbid panic disorder (PD) may express additive symptoms of central fear system disturbance. They endorse elevated levels of sleep and nightmare disturbance [Leskin GA, et al., J Psychiatr Res 2002;36:449–452], and demonstrate movement suppression during laboratory sleep [Woodward SH, et al., Sle...
Recent epidemiologic surveys indicate that anxiety disorders in older adults are more common than previously believed. Despite this, knowledge regarding the clinical characteristics of anxiety disorders in elderly patients is emerging slowly. In addition, detection of anxiety symptoms in elders is complicated by several factors, including a confoun...
Disturbed sleep is a common clinical problem in anxiety disorders, particularly in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and panic disorder (PD). Several studies have attempted to validate the subjective sleep complaints of these disorders using laboratory polysomnography. These attempts, typically focusing on PTSD or PD independently...
We used a novel application of a signal detection technique, receiver operator characteristics (ROC), to describe factors entering a physician's decision to switch a patient from a typical high potency neuroleptic to a particular atypical, olanzapine (OLA) or risperidone (RIS).
ROC analyses were performed on pharmacy records of 476 VA patients who...
Although olanzapine has been widely adopted as a treatment of choice for schizophrenia, its long-term effectiveness and costs have not been evaluated in a controlled trial in comparison with a standard antipsychotic drug. To evaluate the effectiveness and cost impact of olanzapine compared with haloperidol in the treatment of schizophrenia. Double-...
This study examined whether symptoms of depression and concomitant anxiety differed between older and younger medical outpatients referred to a behavioral medicine clinic. In a sample of 178 male veterans aged 21-83 years, older adults (> or = 60 years) reported lower overall depressive symptoms on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and anxiety sy...
This study compared symptom-based algorithm to cut-point scoring of the PTSD Checklist (PCL) in a sample of 504 World War II ex-prisoners of war not seeking treatment. There was relatively high correspondence ( = .80) between the scoring methods; the algorithm identified more participants as having PTSD than the standard cut-point of 50. Receiver O...
Context Although olanzapine has been widely adopted as a treatment of choice for schizophrenia, its long-term effectiveness and costs have not been evaluated in a controlled trial in comparison with a standard antipsychotic drug.
Objective To evaluate the effectiveness and cost impact of olanzapine compared with haloperidol in the treatment of sch...
Prior research on patients with substance use disorders has shown that lifetime physical or sexual abuse is associated with more impaired functioning at treatment intake. The present study sought to determine whether physical or sexual abuse also predicted treatment response (posttreatment outcomes) of individuals with substance use disorders.
Male...
Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are frequently diagnosed with other psychiatric comorbid conditions. This study tested the hypothesis that PTSD patients suffer a greater proportion of sleep problems according to comorbid diagnoses.
National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) data from 591 individuals diagnosed with PTSD were analyzed. Rev...
(a) To determine the quantity and quality of behavioral problems in older hospitalized patients on acute care units; (b) to determine the burden of these behaviors on staff; and (c) to identify predictors of behavioral problems.
Upon admission, patients performed the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and informati...
To corroborate findings from the National Comorbidy study with objective sleep data.
Retrospective data review.
Sleep Laboratory, National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Male Vietnam combat veteran.
N/A.
We reanalyzed laboratory sleep data obtained from subjects undergoing inpatient treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. Comorbid pa...
A number of systems have been proposed for classifying older adults who suffer from cognitive impairment or decline but do not yet meet criteria for Alzheimer's disease (AD). The classification, Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), has attracted much attention. It uses relatively specific diagnostic criteria and individuals who meet these criteria appe...
The combination of mental and physical changes with age will impact agencies focusing on both acute and chronic problems. One of