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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...

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Autores principales: 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
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
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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.
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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
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