"Minorities face particular social strains, and these are often manifested in their overall mental health. In Israel, just under a quarter of the citizens are Arab Palestinians, yet very little has been published exploring the spectrum of mental health issues prevalent in this population. The work collected here draws on the first-hand experience of experts working with Israeli Palestinians to highlight the problems faced by service users, their families, and their communities. Palestinians in Israel face unique social, gender, and family-related conditions that also need reliable research and assessment. Mental Health and Palestinian Citizens in Israel offers research and observation on three central topics: socio-cultural determinants of mental health, mental health needs, and mental health service utilization. From suicidal behaviors and addiction to generational trauma and the particular concerns of children and the elderly, this broad and careful collection of research opens new dialogues on treatment, prevention, and methods for providing the best possible care to those in need."

Background: Extensive research has examined the relationship between exposure to family violence and its long-term mental health effects. Social support has been found to moderate this relationship, but there is a dearth of research on its mediating role. Objectives: The article presents the results of a study on the relationship between witnessing interparental violence and experiencing parental violence during childhood and adolescence on the one hand, and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) during young adulthood on the other. In addition, the article presents results on the role of social support as a mediator in this relationship. Method, participants, and setting: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 516 Israeli university and college students (90.7% female, and 9.3% male; M age = 24.

The study examined the attitudes of Palestinian adults toward social work interventions in cases of husband-to-wife assault (HWA). A survey, using self-administered questionnaires and interviews, was conducted among a random sample of 624 adults from the Palestinian Authority. Results indicate higher levels of support for interventions aimed at helping the couple solve their problems than for interventions aimed at protecting the safety of battered women. However, this trend becomes reversed in cases of repeated and severe HWA. Greater support for interventions aimed at protecting the safety of battered women was found among women versus men and younger versus older adults, as well as among individuals with lower levels of justifying wife abuse and more egalitarian expectations of marriage.

This article presents a study that examined beliefs about violent husbands and about helping battered women among Palestinian women living in Israel from the perspective of patriarchal ideology. A convenience sample of 701 married women was obtained, and a self-report questionnaire was administered. The findings reveal that the majority of participants held violent husbands accountable for their behavior; however, the majority of them did not support punishing violent husbands through formal agencies (i.e., the police) or through informal social institutions (i.e., the family). In addition, contrary to expectations, the majority of women perceived wife beating as a social problem rather than as a private one that should be dealt with within the family. Regression and multiple regression analysis revealed that women’s endorsement of patriarchal ideology was found to influence all three above-mentioned beliefs about violent husbands and battered women, over and above the amount of variance in each of these beliefs that could be attributed to the women’s sociodemographic characteristics. The limitations of the study and its implications for future research are discussed.

The global mental health ramifications of political violence and intimate partner violence (IPV) are well established. There also exists a growing body of evidence about the increased risks for IPV within situations of political violence. Yet, except for a few studies, there is little literature that simultaneously examines how political violence and IPV might result in unique risks for particular types of mental health sequela. Delineating possible divergent patterns between specific mental health conditions resulting from political violence and IPV takes on an increased urgency given that, although they are related, the two most commonly reported outcomes of these two types of violence—post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression—not only require different types of treatment, but may in fact be generated or maintained by disparate paths. Using survey data from adult women in Palestine (n = 122), this study explores the relationships between IPV and political violence (both lifetime and past-month exposure) and tests their independent relationships to PTSD and depressive symptomology. After controlling for the other form of violence exposure, political violence was correlated with PTSD and not with depressive symptomology, while IPV was correlated with depressive symptomology and not with PTSD. Findings demonstrate that distinct forms of violence exposure might indeed be associated with specific mental health outcomes. Results illustrate the need to assess for both political violence and IPV when researching and designing interventions related to violence.

This article presents the findings of a study that examined the rates and the consequences of exposure to community violence (ECV) as reflected in witnessing and experiencing such violence, among Palestinian adolescents from Israel. In particular, it examined the extent to which these adolescents exhibit high levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms as consequences of such exposure, and the extent to which self-efficacy and collective efficacy moderate these consequences. A systematic random sample of 760 Palestinian adolescents in Israel (320 boys, and 440 girls) filled out a self-administered questionnaire. The results show that most of the adolescents had witnessed community violence during the last year and during lifetime, and more than one third had directly experienced such violence during their lifetime compared with 19.6% during the last year. Boys were exposed to community violence more often than girls. Moreover, participants’ ECV predicted high levels of externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that collective efficacy moderated the correlation between experiencing community violence and internalizing symptoms, whereas self-efficacy moderated the correlation between witnessing community violence and externalizing symptoms. There is a need for providing support for youth from close adults as well as from formal and informal resources in the community before and after their ECV.

Background: In this study, we examined the associations of parents' and adolescents' exposure to community violence (CV) with externalizing and internalizing symptoms among adolescents aged 14–18, and the mediating role of some parental factors in these relationships. The study was based on the secondary trauma perspective in explaining parents' exposure to CV and its implications on their offspring. Method: Self-administered questionnaires were filled out by a semi-systematic random sample of 760 Palestinian parent-adolescent dyads from Israel. Results: The findings revealed that most of the Palestinian adolescents had witnessed CV, and more than one-third of them directly experienced such violence during their lifetime. Most of the parents had also witnessed such violence, and almost half of them directly experienced such violence during their lifetime. For parents and adolescents, greater exposure to CV was associated with more internalizing and externalizing symptoms among adolescents. Additionally, results of path analysis indicate that parental stress mediated the correlation between the adolescents' direct experience with CV and internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and it mediated the correlation of the parents' direct experience with CV and internalizing and externalizing symptoms among their adolescent offspring. Conclusions: The strengths and limitations of the study and their implications for future research are discussed. The implications of the results for prevention and intervention are also discussed.

The study examined family and teacher support as factors that can protect adolescents from internalized and externalized problems after exposure to community violence (ECV). Self-administered questionnaires were filled out by a sample of 1,832 Arab and Jewish Israeli high school students. The Arab adolescents reported significantly higher levels of community violence victimization, internalized problems, externalized problems, family support, and teacher support than the Jewish adolescents. The girls reported higher levels of internalized problems, and the boys reported higher levels of externalized problems. ECV predicted high levels of internalized and externalized problems, family support predicted low levels of internalized and externalized problems, and teacher support had no predictive role. Path analysis confirmed the significance of the relationships between ECV effects, support variables, and gender. The limitations of the study and implications of the findings for future research and for the development of family care and family intervention programs are discussed.

This study examined the rates of exposure to community violence (ECV; that is, witnessing and directly experiencing violence) as well as the detrimental consequences of such exposure as reflected in posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and a decline in psychological well-being (PWB) among parents. In addition, the study examined whether self-efficacy and collective efficacy moderate these consequences. A self-administered questionnaire was filled out by a systematic random sample of 760 Palestinian parents in Israel. The findings indicate that most of them had witnessed such violence, and almost half of them had directly experienced such violence in their lifetime. The rates of ECV were higher for the fathers than the mothers. ECV was found to predict high levels of PTSS and low levels of PWB among parents. In addition, collective efficacy was found only to moderate the relationship between witnessing community violence and PTSS. There is a need to identify adults who are exposed to community violence, as well as to develop culturally adapted and sociopolitically sensitive therapeutic and preventive interventions and projects for provision of assistance following exposure to such violence.

Based on an integrative framework, this study addresses the beliefs that a group of social work students from Taiwan had about wife beating. A self-administered questionnaire was filled out by 790 students (76.5% female, 23.5% male) spanning all 4 years of undergraduate studies. The results show that male students exhibited a greater tendency than their female counterparts to justify wife beating and to hold battered women responsible for violence against them. This tendency was also found among students who held traditional attitudes toward women, students who held patriarchal expectations of marriage, and students who had witnessed interparental violence in childhood. In addition, male students and students with traditional attitudes toward women exhibited the strongest tendency to believe that wives benefit from beating. Conversely, female students expressed more willingness than their male counterparts to help battered women, as did students who held liberal attitudes toward women and students who held egalitarian expectations of marriage. Furthermore, female students and those with liberal attitudes toward women tended to hold violent husbands responsible for their behavior, and to express support for punishing violent husbands. This article concludes with a discussion of the study's limitations and the results' implications for future research on the topic.

Despite the increasing interest in therapists' responses to their encounter with sex offenders, there is a lack of research on their subjective perceptions of this encounter and on their experience working with this client population. The study presented in this article is part of a larger qualitative research project conducted among 19 social workers (12 were women and 7 were men; their ages ranged from 30 to 66 years; 15 of them were Jewish and 4 were Arab). In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to examine their attitudes toward and perceptions of their encounter with sex offenders. The questions related to the therapists' perceptions regarding motives for committing sex offenses, therapists' perceptions of sex offenders, therapists' perceptions of the victims of sex offenders, and therapists' perceptions of the nature of their professional role. In this article, emphasis is placed on the development and changes of the therapists' perceptions following that encounter. The following five major domains of perceptions were revealed in the study: Therapists' perceptions of the offenders' personal motives for committing sex offenses, therapists' perceptions of sex offenders, therapists' perceptions of the experience of victimization, the process of changing perceptions, and the nature of the therapists' role. The results are discussed in light of Ajzen's conceptualization of the process of acquiring beliefs. The limitations of the study as well as its implications for future research and for shaping the perceptions of therapists toward sex offenders are discussed.

This study examines the influence of patriarchal ideology on women's beliefs about wife beating. A convenience sample of 701 married Palestinian women from Israel was obtained, and a self-report questionnaire was administered. The findings revealed that large percentages of Palestinian women expressed some tendency to justify wife beating in certain instances. In addition, some of the participants expressed some tendency to blame battered women for violence against them, and to believe that they benefit from beating. As hypothesized, endorsing patriarchal ideology was found to influence all three beliefs about wife beating held by Palestinian women in Israel, over and above the amount of variance in the women’s socio-demographic characteristics (e.g. age, education, employment, place of residence, and religion). The limitations of the study as well as the implications of the results for future research are discussed.

Extensive research has been conducted in recent decades on the mental health consequences of Palestinians’ exposure to military and political violence. Despite the alarming rates of Palestinian youth exposure to community violence (ECV), there is a serious dearth of research on the effects of this pattern of exposure. The current study focused on the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among Palestinian adolescents as a result of their ECV. The study also examines the ability of perceived support from family and teachers to moderate the relationship between ECV and PTSD symptoms, and the involvement of demographic and socioeconomic variables in explaining this development. A sample of 1930 Palestinian secondary school students, aged 12–19, from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, answered questionnaires. Data analysis used univariate, bivariate, and multivariate methods, including SEM. The prevalence of PTSD symptoms was predicted by past year ECV, family support, teacher support, residential density, parents’ education, age, and gender. SEM analysis validated additional relationship paths between variables. Results are discussed, suggesting future research with theoretical and practical implications.

Objective: This study examines patterns of and barriers for help seeking after exposure to community violence (ECV) among Palestinian adolescents from theWest Bank and East Jerusalem. Method: Self-administrated questionnaireswere filled-out by a sample of 1930 Palestinian Junior andHigh school students. Participants reported on their ECV, choice of help agent, barriers for help seeking, perceived help experience, and sociodemographic factors. Results: Informal help agents were the first choice of 48% of both male and female adolescents, 30% of the boys and 20% of the girls sought formal help, and 1.9% of the participants sought only formal help. Positive help experience was best attributed to listening and giving advice, while confronting the help seeker led to the most adverse experience. Seeking help from multiple sources produced better help experience. The common reason for not seeking help by girls was feeling that talking wouldn't help. Boys did not seek help out of fear of disclosure and feeling that the problem would go away on its own. Conclusions: Palestinian adolescents' help seeking patterns tend to confirm with those found in other populations. Study limitations and practical implications are discussed, and future studies are suggested.

The article presents the results of a study on the relationship between exposure to (i.e., witnessing and experiencing) different patterns and types of family violence during childhood, during adolescence, and during young adulthood, on one hand, and adult post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), on the other. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1,969 Palestinian students using a self-administered questionnaire. The results reveal that the more the participants witnessed and experienced psychological aggression (PS) and physical violence (PH) in their families of origin, the more they exhibited PTSS. Furthermore, the results indicate that a significant amount of the variance in the participants’ PTSS could be attributed to their exposure to family violence, over and above the amounts of variance that were explained by their sociodemographic characteristics and by their perceptions of their parents’ psychological adjustment. The limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed.

The influence of Palestinian physicians’ patriarchal ideology (PAI) and exposure to family violence (EFV) on their beliefs about wife beating was examined. Self-administered questionnaires were completed by 396 physicians. The results revealed that notable percentages of the physicians expressed some level of willingness to justify wife beating, tendency to believe that battered women benefit from beating, and that battered women are to blame for their beating. Nevertheless, between 27 and 59 % of the physicians expressed some willingness to help battered women. The results also revealed that significant amounts of the variance in physicians’ beliefs about wife beating can be attributed to their PAI and to their EFV during childhood and adolescence.The implications of the results for future research, theory development, and training of physicians are discussed.

Adolescent community violence exposure (CVE) has been linked to posttraumatic stress (PTS) and has been found to vary by race and ethnicity. Little is known about the relationship between adolescent CVE and PTS across ethnic groups in an international context. Arab and Jewish high school students (n = 1571) in Israel completed self-report questionnaires. Jewish adolescents (n = 821) witnessed more community violence, while Arab adolescents (n = 750) were more likely to victimized in the community and endorse higher levels of PTS. Ethnicity was found to be a significant predictor of PTS when controlling for CVE using hierarchical multiple regression (accounting for 2% of the variance in PTS). Ethnic affiliation did not moderate the relationship between CVE and PTS. These findings add to the small body of literature exploring cross-cultural differences in CVE and associated psychological distress. Further investigation of CVE and mental health cross-ethnically is warranted given the disparities in CVE and PTS rates.

Normative socio-cultural influences may lead to parent-child value similarity over and above familial processes. Such influences, in which the mainstream position taken by people in a given culture leads to an average similarity between unrelated members of the culture, have been investigated for the most part by considering one country at a time. This has, however, left several questions open; among these is the question of whether parent-child value similarity is a matter of societal homogeneity in values. In an attempt to answer this query, the current study intends to examine the effect of the national and ethnic normative profiles, that is, groups' average profiles, on parent-child value similarity, while assuming a cross-cultural perspective. It involves 212 mother-adolescent dyads from Northern Italy and 222 Jewish and Arab mother-adolescent dyads from Israel, all participants in the Value of Children (VOC) Study. In the more homogeneous value context of Italy, parent-child value similarity was strongly inflated by the broad socio-cultural context and can best be viewed as a general similarity to a national standard. On the contrary, in the less homogeneous context of Israel, when accounting for the effects of normative profiles, there was still similarity unique to a particular dyad: Mothers and children, especially from the Arab group, were similar to each other in those values which distinguish them from the other people in the country. All in all, the results help us to disentangle the origins and to interpret the actual meaning of detected parent-child value similarity.

اشتمل البحث على نحو 1775 أسرة من مناطق مختلِفة: الشمال، حيفا، المركَز والجنوب، آخذا بعين الاعتبار القرى غير المعترف بها والمدن المختلطة. وقد شملت العينة أيضا نساء متزوجات في حينه، ونساء سبق لهن الزواج، الأزواج والشباب (ذكور وإناث)، غير المتزوجين من سن 18 عاما حتى سن 44 عاما. تطرق البحث إلى مدى تعرض الأفراد إلى العنف من داخل العائلة، بالإضافة إلى تعرضهم إلى العنف من قِبل أشخاص من خارج الأسرة، مكان تعرضهم للعنف ونوع العنف الذي تعرضوا إليه، إضافة إلى آراء حول مسبِبات العنف المجتمعي بشكل عام وأسباب العنف ضد النساء من قبل أزواجهن وآراء المستطلعين حول كيفية مكافحة هذه الظاهرة. وقد تم عرض أهم النتائج في التقرير "العنف والعلاقات الأسرية داخل المجتمع الفلسطيني في إسرائيل"، من إعداد أحمد شيخ محمد، أميرة عراف، وسوسن رزق. - دأبت الجمعية على توفير قاعدة بيانات، حول هذه الظاهرة الخطيرة، التي باتت تقلق المجتمع العربي برمته؛ من أجل جمع المعلومات والاستفادة منها في فهم الظاهرة وآثارها وطرح الحلول والبرامج لمعالجتها. تطرق البحث إلى أشكال العنف المتعددة مثل العنف الجسدي، النفسي، الاقتصادي، المجتمعي، الجنسي والكلامي؛ وذلك من خلال استبيان واسع شمل 1700 أسرة عربية في كافة المناطق في البلاد. رافقت المشروع لجنة استشارية مهنية، شاركت فيها مجموعة من الباحثين في المجال، إضافة إلى ممثلين من أصحاب القرار والعديد من المؤسسات الأهلية العاملة في المجال. تم تطوير استمارة البحث بالتنسيق بين لجنة التوجيه وطاقِم مركز الإحصاء الفلسطيني، وتم تنفيذه خلال العام 2013.