Cargando…
Searching the Internet for psychiatric disorders among Arab and Jewish Israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey
Israel represents a complex and pluralistic society comprising two major ethno-national groups, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, which differ in terms of religious and cultural values as well as social constructs. According to the so-called “diversification hypothesis”, within the framework of e-heal...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2018
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5857171/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29576974 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4507 |
_version_ | 1783307428485398528 |
---|---|
author | Adawi, Mohammad Amital, Howard Mahamid, Mahmud Amital, Daniela Bisharat, Bishara Mahroum, Naim Sharif, Kassem Guy, Adi Adawi, Amin Mahagna, Hussein Abu Much, Arsalan Watad, Samaa Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi Watad, Abdulla |
author_facet | Adawi, Mohammad Amital, Howard Mahamid, Mahmud Amital, Daniela Bisharat, Bishara Mahroum, Naim Sharif, Kassem Guy, Adi Adawi, Amin Mahagna, Hussein Abu Much, Arsalan Watad, Samaa Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi Watad, Abdulla |
author_sort | Adawi, Mohammad |
collection | PubMed |
description | Israel represents a complex and pluralistic society comprising two major ethno-national groups, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, which differ in terms of religious and cultural values as well as social constructs. According to the so-called “diversification hypothesis”, within the framework of e-health and in the era of new information and communication technologies, seeking online health information could be a channel to increase health literacy, especially among disadvantaged groups. However, little is known concerning digital seeking behavior and, in particular, digital mental health literacy. This study was conducted in order to fill in this gap. Concerning raw figures, unadjusted for confounding variables (time, population size, Internet penetration index, disease rate), “depression” searched in Hebrew was characterized by 1.5 times higher search volumes, slightly declining throughout time, whereas relative search volumes (RSVs) related to “depression” searched in Arabic tended to increase over the years. Similar patterns could be detected for “phobia” (in Hebrew 1.4-fold higher than in Arabic) and for “anxiety” (with the searches performed in Hebrew 2.3 times higher than in Arabic). “Suicide” in Hebrew was searched 2.0-fold more than in Arabic (interestingly for both languages search volumes exhibited seasonal cyclic patterns). Eating disorders were searched more in Hebrew: 8.0-times more for “bulimia”, whilst “anorexia” was searched in Hebrew only. When adjusting for confounding variables, association between digital seeking behavior and ethnicity remained statistically significant (p-value < 0.0001) for all psychiatric disorders considered in the current investigation, except for “bulimia” (p = 0.989). More in details, Israeli Arabs searched for mental health disorders less than Jews, apart from “depression”. Arab and Jewish Israelis, besides differing in terms of language, religion, social and cultural values, have different patterns of usage of healthcare services and provisions, as well as e-healthcare services concerning mental health. Policy- and decision-makers should be aware of this and make their best efforts to promote digital health literacy among the Arab population in Israel. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5857171 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-58571712018-03-24 Searching the Internet for psychiatric disorders among Arab and Jewish Israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey Adawi, Mohammad Amital, Howard Mahamid, Mahmud Amital, Daniela Bisharat, Bishara Mahroum, Naim Sharif, Kassem Guy, Adi Adawi, Amin Mahagna, Hussein Abu Much, Arsalan Watad, Samaa Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi Watad, Abdulla PeerJ Psychiatry and Psychology Israel represents a complex and pluralistic society comprising two major ethno-national groups, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, which differ in terms of religious and cultural values as well as social constructs. According to the so-called “diversification hypothesis”, within the framework of e-health and in the era of new information and communication technologies, seeking online health information could be a channel to increase health literacy, especially among disadvantaged groups. However, little is known concerning digital seeking behavior and, in particular, digital mental health literacy. This study was conducted in order to fill in this gap. Concerning raw figures, unadjusted for confounding variables (time, population size, Internet penetration index, disease rate), “depression” searched in Hebrew was characterized by 1.5 times higher search volumes, slightly declining throughout time, whereas relative search volumes (RSVs) related to “depression” searched in Arabic tended to increase over the years. Similar patterns could be detected for “phobia” (in Hebrew 1.4-fold higher than in Arabic) and for “anxiety” (with the searches performed in Hebrew 2.3 times higher than in Arabic). “Suicide” in Hebrew was searched 2.0-fold more than in Arabic (interestingly for both languages search volumes exhibited seasonal cyclic patterns). Eating disorders were searched more in Hebrew: 8.0-times more for “bulimia”, whilst “anorexia” was searched in Hebrew only. When adjusting for confounding variables, association between digital seeking behavior and ethnicity remained statistically significant (p-value < 0.0001) for all psychiatric disorders considered in the current investigation, except for “bulimia” (p = 0.989). More in details, Israeli Arabs searched for mental health disorders less than Jews, apart from “depression”. Arab and Jewish Israelis, besides differing in terms of language, religion, social and cultural values, have different patterns of usage of healthcare services and provisions, as well as e-healthcare services concerning mental health. Policy- and decision-makers should be aware of this and make their best efforts to promote digital health literacy among the Arab population in Israel. PeerJ Inc. 2018-03-14 /pmc/articles/PMC5857171/ /pubmed/29576974 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4507 Text en ©2018 Adawi et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Psychiatry and Psychology Adawi, Mohammad Amital, Howard Mahamid, Mahmud Amital, Daniela Bisharat, Bishara Mahroum, Naim Sharif, Kassem Guy, Adi Adawi, Amin Mahagna, Hussein Abu Much, Arsalan Watad, Samaa Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi Watad, Abdulla Searching the Internet for psychiatric disorders among Arab and Jewish Israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey |
title | Searching the Internet for psychiatric disorders among Arab and Jewish Israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey |
title_full | Searching the Internet for psychiatric disorders among Arab and Jewish Israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey |
title_fullStr | Searching the Internet for psychiatric disorders among Arab and Jewish Israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey |
title_full_unstemmed | Searching the Internet for psychiatric disorders among Arab and Jewish Israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey |
title_short | Searching the Internet for psychiatric disorders among Arab and Jewish Israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey |
title_sort | searching the internet for psychiatric disorders among arab and jewish israelis: insights from a comprehensive infodemiological survey |
topic | Psychiatry and Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5857171/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29576974 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4507 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT adawimohammad searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT amitalhoward searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT mahamidmahmud searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT amitaldaniela searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT bisharatbishara searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT mahroumnaim searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT sharifkassem searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT guyadi searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT adawiamin searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT mahagnahussein searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT abumucharsalan searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT watadsamaa searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT bragazzinicolaluigi searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey AT watadabdulla searchingtheinternetforpsychiatricdisordersamongarabandjewishisraelisinsightsfromacomprehensiveinfodemiologicalsurvey |