1. The development of
psychiatry in the Arab
world : the challenges and
perspectives
WALID SARHAN
Consultant Psychiatrist
Amman-Jordan
2. Islamic Bimaristans in
the Middle Ages
• the first proper Bimaristan built in Islam was in
Damascus, by al-Waleed bin Abdel Malek and
built in 86 Hijri (707 A.D.)
• They divided the Bimaristan into two sections,
one for men and the other for women.
3. Section for psychiatry
The halls of internal medicine which
frequently included a section for the
patients affected by fever and another one
for patients having mania.
4. • Muslims realized the importance of the care for
mentally affected patients. They frequently
added to the big Bimaristans special places
isolated by iron bars, specially for patients with
mental diseases
• Muslim physicians knew that psychiatric and
mental diseases required a special type of care
and that the physician must be acquainted with
the etiology of the disease from which the
patient is suffering.
Mental Disease Bimaristan
5. Medical education
The theoretical method in the medical schools.
A practical method for training and practice where
students gathered around the doctor in chief to
see and examine the patients and the treatment
he prescribed.
When the students finished the studying period
they applied for an exam, took an oath and got
their certificates.
6. Mohd Zakria Razi
• While in Arabia & parts of Asia there was a revival of
scientific interest in Greco- Roman Medicine.
• 705 AD: Asylum 4 mentally ill….in Baghdad
• 900 AD: Rhazes ( Mohd Zakria Razi )
• One of the Greatest name in Arabian Medicine
• known as Persian Galen
• Director & chief physician at Baghdad hospital
• wrote more than 200 books
The first psychiatrist in history
7. • A Persian physician and philosopher, born near
Bukhara.
• He is regarded as a father of early modern medicine
and clinical pharmacology, celebrated until today by
nations of the East and West.
• History records that in Arabia & Asia mentally ill
patients received a much more treatment than the
patients in the dark ages of Europe.
• Muslim belief: insane were loved by God
1000 AD: Avicenna (Ibn
Sina )
8. Al-Ghazali
• The great philosopher
• The first psychologists
• Al-Ghazali has sometimes been referred to by
historians as the single most influential Muslim
after the Islamic prophet Muhammad(PBU)
11. The Arab world
• The Arab world is taken to mean the 22
members of the Arab League, accounting for
280 million people. The region has the largest
proportion of young people in the world: 38% of
Arabs are under 14. Life expectancy has
increased by 15 years over the past three
decades.
12. Arab World
• The Arabic language forms the unifying feature of the
Arab World.
• Though different areas use local varieties of Arabic, all
share in the use of the standardized classical language,
which was constructed from Classical Arabic
13. Religion
• The majority of people in the Arab World adhere to
Islam and the religion has official status in most
countries.
• Overall, Arabs make up less than one quarter of the
world's 1.4 billion Muslims
14. Individual Development in
Arab Societies
Arab societies tend to be "father dominant"
(patriarchal): The father is the head of the
family and is considered a powerful and
charismatic figure. He commands respect
as the legitimate authority for all matters of
the family (El-Islam, 1983).
The patriarchal structure extends
throughout all levels of society.
15. Individual Development in
Arab Societies-cont.
The father of the nuclear family is subordinate to
his own father, who in turn defers to the authority of
the head of the clan. All clan heads are subordinate
to the head of the tribe or hamula.
The tribal or clan leader also serves as the spiritual
and practical father of the whole group—he
represents the collective to the outside world,
oversees the rules for the clan or tribe, and guides
their actions.
16. Is the Western nosology applicable also
to members of the Arab/Muslim
culture?
• Individuals are not individuated from the
collective, the mind and body are not distinct
entities, and the internal constructs of
personality (emotions, thoughts, self, super-
ego) are not distinct one from the other?
M.Dwairy
17. Heterogeneous Arab population
• The rapid changing Arab society has lead to
heterogeneous groups in the society.
• Some Arabs are still very traditional while
others have developed the western attitude
to various degrees, in the same family and
the same city or country.
18. The place of Arabs in
science
Arabs comprise 5 percent of the world’s population,
but publish just 1.1 percent of its books, according to
the U.N.’s
Between 1980 and 2000, Korea granted 16,328
patents, while nine Arab countries, including Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E., granted a combined
total of only 370, many of them registered by
foreigners.
2003 Arab Human Development Report.
19. Education
• The region’s average mean years of
schooling of six years is 1.3 years higher
than those of South Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa regions but 1.5 years below the World
average and over four years below the
average for Europe and Central Asia.
21. Scientific and technical journal articles
2007
The world 758,137
20,980Spain4,980Greece413Algeria
36Sudan18,194India3,264Argentina
79Syria4,366Iran17,831Australia
757Tunisia6,623Israel41Bahrain
8,637Turkey52,896Japan235Bangladesh
214UAE344Jordan7,071Belgium
47,121UK242Kuwait27,799Canada
209,694USA238Lebanon56,806China
18Yemen30Libya5,236Denmark
44,408Germany377Morocco1,934Egypt
13,953Russia129Oman149Ethiopia
589Saudi Arabia48Qatar30,740France
3,792Singapore
22. EXPENDITURE ON
HEALTH
According to the WHO World Health Report (2001) the
health expenditure estimated as percentage of gross
domestic product is highest in Lebanon (11.3%)
followed by Jordan (8.8%), Tunisia (5.3%) and Bahrain
(5%). None of the remaining Arab countries fulfilled the
WHO recommendation of a minimum expenditure of 5%
of GDP on health. In none of the sources could we find
a reference to the specific expenditure on mental health
services.
23. Mental health expenditure
• The mental health expenditure as a percentage
of total health expenditure is not available in
most Arab countries and not reported by the
officials. Only three Arab countries have
provided an estimate: Qatar (1%), Egypt (less
than 1%) and Palestine (2.5%).
25. In Egypt there are 3 journals published in English:
Egyptian Journal of Psychiatry, since 1978 Current
Psychiatry, since 1995 Journal of Neurology Psychiatry
and Neurosurgery,
In Algeria the official journal of APA, in French.
In Jordan there is the Arab Journal of Psychiatry, since
1989
Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, the official
journal of
WHO/EMRO
Psychiatric journals in the Arab World
26. Prevalence of psychiatric
disorders
• The lifetime prevalence of any anxiety disorder
among adults was 16.7% in the Lebanese study
and 13.8% in the Iraqi survey; that of any mood
disorder was, respectively, 12.6% and 7.5%. The
study carried out in Morocco reported a point
prevalence of 9.3% for generalized anxiety
disorder and 26.5% for major depressive disorder,
while the Egyptian study reported a point
prevalence of 4.8% for anxiety disorders and 6.4%
for mood disorders
27. Mental health legislation
• The Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO)
office of the WHO, national psychiatric societies
and national psychiatric leaders. Six out of 20
countries do not have a mental health legislation
and two do not have a mental health policy.
There is no information for Mauritania and
Comoros.
28. Addiction
• 6% of adult population.
• Hashish-amphetamines-Heroin.
• Inhalants in children and adolescents.
• Smoking cigarettes and Hubble bubble.
• Alcohol.??
• The Arab world is undergoing an epidemic of
substance misuse with very poor services.
• The treatment of substance misuse is part of the
poor mental health services.
29. Psychiatric hospital beds
• three countries (Lebanon, Kuwait and
Bahrain) had in 2007 more than 30
psychiatric beds per 100,000 population,
while two (Sudan and Somalia) had less
than 5 per 100,000. A substantial reduction
of psychiatric beds occurred in Iraq,
Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar and
Palestine.
30. Country Mental health policy (year) Substance abuse
policy (year)
Algeria Yes (?) Yes (1990)
Bahrain Yes (1993) Yes (1983)
Djibouti No No
Egypt Yes (1978) Yes (1986)
Emirates Yes (?) Yes (?)
Iraq Yes (1981) Yes (1965)
Jordan Yes (1986) Yes (2000)
Kuwait Yes (1957) Yes (1983)
Lebanon No No
Libya Yes (?) No
Morocco Yes (1972) Yes (1972)
Oman Yes (1992) Yes (1999)
Palestine Yes (2004) Yes (2004)
Qatar Yes (1980) Yes (1986)
Saudi Arabia Yes (1989) Yes (2000)
Somalia Yes (?) Yes (?)
Sudan Yes (1998) Yes (1995)
Syria Yes (2001) Yes (1993)
Tunisia Yes (1986) Yes (1969)
Yemen Yes (1986) No
Mental health policies in Arab countries
31. Country National mental health Mental health legislation
program (year) (year)
Algeria Yes (2001) Yes (1998)
Bahrain Yes (1989) Yes (1975)
Djibouti No An old French legislation
Egypt Yes (1986) Yes (2009)
Emirates Yes (1991) Yes (1981)
Iraq Yes (1987) Yes (1981)
Jordan Yes (1994) Yes (2003)
Kuwait Yes (1997) No
Lebanon Yes (1987) No
Libya Yes (1988) Yes (1975)
Morocco Yes (1973) Yes (1998)
Oman Yes (1990) Yes (1999)
Palestine Yes (2004) Yes (2004)
Qatar Yes (1990) No
Saudi Arabia Yes (1989) No
Somalia Yes (?) No
Sudan Yes (1998) Yes (1998)
Syria Yes (2001) Yes (1965)
Tunisia Yes (1990) Yes (2003)
Yemen Yes (1983) No
32. The Psychiatrists
• The highest number of psychiatrists is
found in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, while
seven countries (Iraq, Libya, Morocco,
Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) have
less than 0.5 psychiatrists per 100,000
population.
33. Mental health workers
• Psychiatric nurses per 100,000 population
range from 23 in Bahrain and 22.5 in
Emirates to 0.09 in Yemen and 0.03 in
Somalia.
• The same applies to psychologists and
social workers, with the most substantial
increase observed in Bahrain, Emirates,
Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi
Arabia and Yemen
34. Big mental hospitals
• Recent years have seen significant changes in
the field of mental health in the countries of the
Arab Region. Psychiatric services, which were
earlier totally confined to a few large mental
hospitals, are now gradually being replaced by
psychiatric units with both inpatient and
outpatient facilities in general hospitals.
35. Country Psychiatric beds per
100,000
Psychiatrists
per 100,000
1998 2007 1998 2007
Algeria 14 25 1.1 2.2
Bahrain 33.8 33 3.7 5
Djibouti N.A. 7 0 0
Egypt 12.5 13 0.9 0.9
Emirates N.A. 14 0.9 2
Iraq 7 6.3 0.1 0.7
Jordan 20 15.7 1.1 1
Kuwait 47 34 2.6 3.1
Lebanon 47 75 1.2 2
Libya 56 10 0.3 0.2
Morocco 7.6 7.8 N.A. 0.4
Mental health resources in Arab countries
38. Traditional healers
• Cultural beliefs of possessions and the impact
of Jinn or the evil eye affect interpretation of
mental symptoms.
• the first resort for the families of mental patients
is not the general practitioner, but the traditional
healers, who acquire a special importance
because of their claim of religious background.
39. The Challenges
• The public awareness is poor.
• The governmental services are poor.
• Private services are scattered with various
standards.
• The patients and their families face the
stigma, finding the service, and paying for it.
• Lack of mental health professionals.
• Poor research
40. The Challenges
• In the Arab world, health and education budget
assignment is below the recommended
requirements far better quality of life.
• The budget allowed for mental health as a
percentage from the total health but it is far below
the range to promote mental health services. The
mental health human resources and the inefficient
data.
41. Recommendations
• Public and governmental awareness .
• Research, training, and cooperation .
• Mental health policies and legislations
should be updated.
• Drug addiction need to have priority on the
national agenda.
• Special care should be given to the
causalities of wars, terrorism and violence.
42. Recommendations
• Mental health professionals to work
as a team.
• Liaison psychiatry could help in
getting the support of the medical
profession.
• Child and adolescence psychiatry
should be given good attention.
• Cooperation with international
centers .
43. References :
1. Ibn Abi Usaibi'ah, Uyun al Anba, P. 45.
2. Isa, A., The History of Bimaristans in Islam,
Damascus, 1939, P. 9.
3. Noshrawy, A.R., The Islamic Bimaristans in the
Middle Ages, Arabic Translation by M. Kh. Badra,
The Arab Legacy Bul. No. 21, P 202.
4. Ibn Al-Atheer, Al-Kamel Fi al-Tareikh, The perfect in
History, Cairo, 1290 H. V. 4P. 219.
5. Ibn Joubir, Rehlat Ibn Jouber, The Journey of Ibn
Jouber, Cairo, 1358 H.