Iris Manor-Binyamini

Background: Hospital transfers of residents with dementia may provide them with access to acute diagnosis and treatment but also disrupt their continuity of care, which is essential for residents’ stability, safety, and quality of care. The aim of this study was to examine how transfer decisions are produced within the organizational context of long-term dementia care and how they may affect continuity of care. Methods: A qualitative descriptive design was used, supplemented by retrospective referral data. The study was conducted in a 200-bed dementia-specialist long-term care facility. Referral records over three years were reviewed to describe transfer patterns, reasons, and outcomes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 nurses and 2 physicians. Referral data were analyzed descriptively, and interviews were analyzed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA). Results: A total of 578 referrals to hospital emergency departments were identified; 34.9% resulted in hospitalization. Three themes were identified: (1) From recognition to authorization, describing interprofessional hierarchy in referral decision-making; (2) When uncertainty becomes risk, describing how limited diagnostic and treatment capacity shifted decisions toward transfer; and (3) Protecting continuity, describing staff concerns about the disruptive effects of transfer. Overall, decisions were shaped by clinical uncertainty, organizational conditions, and continuity-of-care concerns. Conclusions: Transfer decisions for residents with dementia are context-dependent organizational judgments, not solely responses to acute clinical deterioration. Strengthening institutional capacity, decision-support tools, staff training, and advance care planning may help preserve continuity of care, reduce avoidable disruption, and improve resident safety and quality of care.

A shared traumatic reality refers to contexts in which individuals experience trauma both personally and professionally while supporting others exposed to the same events. Research on coping resources in such contexts has primarily focused on professionals. Guided by a resilience-oriented framework, the present study explores the roles of social support, sense of coherence (SOC), and meaning in field practice in the association between social work students’ war-related experiences and psychological distress. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in northern Israel during the ongoing Israel–Gaza war among 149 undergraduate social work students (M = 28.71, SD = 5.47; age range = 20–54; 85.2% female), including traditional and second-career students. Results indicated a strong positive association between war-related experiences and psychological distress. SOC moderated this association, such that the relationship was weaker among students with higher SOC. Meaning in field practice partially mediated this association, with greater exposure linked to lower meaning in field practice and, in turn, higher psychological distress. These findings underscore the importance of resource-oriented approaches in social work education and field training and highlight the need for institutional and supervisory support to protect students’ well-being and sustain professional learning in contexts of prolonged collective adversity.

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among Arab women in the Middle East. This study examined the relationships between marital support, partner participation, body image, and mental distress among Bedouin women diagnosed with breast cancer. A total of 100 Muslim Bedouin women who were at least a year from their initial breast cancer diagnoses participate in the study. The findings indicated negative and significant relationships between partner support and mental distress and between body image and mental distress. In addition, a clear positive relationship was found between partner support and partner participation in the home and between education, income, and spousal support. Women who underwent breast reconstruction following mastectomy reported a higher level of support and improved psychological outcomes. Finally, several distinct relationships were found between demographic variables and the research variables. The provision of culturally appropriate, patient-centered cancer treatments has not been explored for Muslim Arab women in the Middle East in general and in the Bedouin community more specifically, despite their unique cultural characteristics and increases in the rate of breast cancer among these populations. This study highlights the need for further studies in this area.

Objective: To examine whether obstetricians' physicians are influenced by non-medical information/considerations in the decision-making process. Methods: The study population was sampled from four hospitals. Participants: 100 physicians. All 100 physicians were presented with three somewhat vague case studies that an obstetrician might encounter during their career. The cases were chosen through the triangulation method by specialists – judges in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology. Each participant was asked to provide a decision: whether to continue with a vaginal birth plan or to do a cesarean. In addition, each participant was asked to explain the decision. Analysis of the study data consisted of three stages: Line-by-Line Coding, Axial Coding, and Core Category. Results:Three main themes were revealed in the study, which are: the process of the birth, fetal distress, and the passage of the fetus through the pelvis. In addition, the study findings indicate that in medical practice, "non-medical" information is being used as a critical argument in decision-making regarding the procedure of the birth, for two of the themes (fetal distress and passage of the fetus through the pelvis), the non-medical information has increased the likelihood of the doctors choosing to perform a cesarean. Conclusions: If, as this study suggests, obstetricians rely on non-medical and non-obstetric information in their decision-making, this issue should be presented during training and throughout the practice of these physicians, in order to increase their awareness of the additional factors that influence their medical decision-making.

This article presents a qualitative study of the experience of child marriage among Bedouin in Israel. We conducted semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 17 young Bedouin women, aged 17–21, who were married between the ages of 12–17. The interviewees’ descriptions indicate that child marriage is a powerful cultural practice that has evolved into a “natural” and “obvious” tool for supervising girls and women. All the interviewees reported domestic violence, despair, and reported suicide attempts as a response to their existential suffering in their marriage and as an act of daily resistance to a powerful and oppressive cultural practice. These findings raise challenges in the case of global mental health interventions since these interventions not only require cultural sensitivity to avoid the constraint of Western psychiatric diagnoses and classifications, but also more critical thinking about the interactions between global and local, universalist and culturalist perspectives.

There are few indigenous men’s voices regarding sexual violence against them, particularly concerning Bedouin men’s views. How do Bedouin men who have experienced SV describe, perceive, and interpret their experiences in their cultural context? Seventeen Bedouin men, residents of either recognized or unrecognized Bedouin settlements in the Negev, Israel. Phenomenological semi-structured interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and then translated into English. Themes were generated using thematic analysis. Three main themes were found: descriptions of the incidents, reactions to the experiences, and the need for keeping incidents of SV secret due to the stigma involved as a result of patriarchal, political (i.e., tribal hierarchy), and private (i.e., family loyalty) norms, and the matrix of multiple and often conflicting roles and identities that Bedouin men must assume despite their experiences. The incidence of SV against men in the Bedouin community is alarming and must be acknowledged by the research community and public health practitioners as a serious health issue that requires more holistic research to better understand the men’s experiences. More efforts are needed on the local, regional, and global levels to provide post-violence care for survivors and to prevent SV. In particular, there is a need to reduce the stigma associated with SV so that young men will be willing to speak up about their trauma without shame and receive help.

This path analysis of mothers of children with autism aimed to investigate the relationship between maternal burnout and the mother’s subjective reporting of difficulty in childcare, family function, and personality traits. A total of 410 mothers of children with autism (mean age 39.03, SD 7.42) completed four questionnaires: Parental Burnout Measure (PBM-12), International Personality Item Pool—Big Five Markers (IPIP-BFM-20), Flexibility and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES-IV), and a survey on childcare difficulties. Path analysis using two predetermined models was used to examine the interrelations. Both models fit the empirical data equally with a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) index of 0.000 and a 90% confidence interval (model 1: 0.000–0.052; model 2: 0.000–0.059). Path analysis revealed similar fit indexes for both models: (a) burnout is a mediator between exogenous variables and family functioning, and (b) family functioning is an indirect mediator between exogenous variables and burnout. These findings suggest that increased maternal emotional instability (neuroticism) and conscientiousness can lead to increased family communication problems, which may further lead to a breakdown of the equilibrium in the family system, resulting in the mother’s dissatisfaction with family life and a consequent increased risk of maternal burnout.

This study aimed to explore and provide an in-depth insight into the experience and perceptions of parents to children with cancer at the end of life (EOL). A sample of 15 parents of children (aged 2-18) with cancer participated in semi-structured interviews in an oncology department of an Israeli hospital. Data were analyzed using a phenomenological thematic analysis approach. The findings that emerged revealed: (a) the cultural aspect of the Israeli society of the importance of family and of the children within the family, (b) the parents’ unique way of coping, of holding a dual awareness, and (c) emphasizing that hope and support are necessary components for parents’ ability to cope with their child having terminal cancer, at the EOL. A number of important practical recommendations can be made for professionals treating child facing the EOL with cancer and their families. First, understanding the “double awareness” developed by parents of children facing with EOL cancer. Second, there is significance to bring the medical staff closer to the patient’s bed, which is to say, training medical staff in open communication on this subject. Third, it is recommended to construct intervention programs that would accompany the whole family and not just the parents. Fourth, there is some necessity to train healthcare teams working in pediatric oncology wards and providing palliative care, to teach them how to help people hold on hope and to evaluate hope in parents of children at the EOL.