Bethlehem University Journal

Publisher:
Pluto Journals
Publication date:
2023-03-02
ISBN:
2410-5449

Description:

Bethlehem University Journal is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published annually by the Office of the Dean of Research at Bethlehem University.

Issue Number

Latest documents

  • Working memory, episodic memory and sustained attention in women survivors of intimate partner violence in Spain: The Believe Battery

    A growing body of literature suggests that intimate partner violence (IPV) is linked topsychopathology and lower cognitive functionality. Nonetheless, few studies have examinedneuropsychological correlates using objective neuropsychological assessments. The mainobjective of this study was to assess the relationship between cognitive functioning (specificallymemory and attention) and IPV. A group of women IPV survivors (n = 37) and a group of womenwho had not experienced IPV (n = 23) were assessed using the Believe Battery, a comprehensiveneuropsychological battery adapted for women survivors of IPV. Findings demonstrated thatwomen who have suffered IPV present lower neuropsychological scores in the domains ofworking memory, verbal episodic memory, and attention compared to women who have notexperienced IPV. These results suggest that IPV may have an impact on neuropsychologicalfunctioning among women victims and survivors, thus raising an important question aboutimplications in clinical and forensic settings. Future studies should examine whether there areadditional differences in other cognitive domains and assess how such differences are relatedto the potential causal mechanisms of violence (e.g., strangulation, head injury, chronic stress).

  • Protocol for the Development of a Computerized Battery for Cross-Cultural Neuropsychological Assessment: The EMBRACED Project

    Globalization is making our world increasingly diverse. However, the field of neuropsychological assessment hasn’t addressed this diversity appropriately and people around the world are being assessed with instruments that are not culturally adapted for them. Practitioners are using tests that were originally created for Western culture(s) to evaluate patients of all demographic backgrounds. The solution is the development of computerized cross-cultural tests, but there is no established standard procedure for creating a battery that is comprehensive, modular, psychometrically robust, easy to use, free, and culturally salient. The EMBRACED battery is intended to be exactly that. The protocol for its development followed strict, evidence-based scientific methods for the determination of all its neuropsychological domains, their relevant constructs, and the best tasks to measure them; the tasks and stimuli are also computerized. The EMBRACED battery is user-friendly, cost-effective, and patient-guided. The preliminary results obtained to date show that culture has a significant effect on neuropsychological test performance, with bias in favor of Western populations. Our field has an ethical responsibility to improve our instruments, increase fairness in testing, and to fight for social justice around the world, which is precisely the aim of the EMBRACED project.

  • The relationship between maternal personal growth during pregnancy and infant neurodevelopment

    Optimal adaptation to changes that occur during pregnancy is essential to prevent possible negative effects on maternal psychological health (such as stress or postpartum depression). In fact, an adequate adaptation to the new life situation has implications on the subsequent offspring´s development. Thus, the objective of the present study was to investigate the potential association between levels of personal growth and maternal age during pregnancy with the subsequent cognitive and motor neurodevelopment of the offspring at 6 months of age. Twenty-three pregnant women participated in this longitudinal study. The participants were assessed during the three trimesters of pregnancy using the Ryff Psychological Well-being Scale (Ryff, 1989). The neonates´ neurodevelopment was assessed using the BSID-III at 6 months of age. A multiple linear regression analysis was carried out using maternal growth during pregnancy and gestational age as independent variables, and the levels of cognitive and motor neurodevelopment of the babies at 6 months of age as dependent variables. The results showed that personal growth during pregnancy predicted cognitive neurodevelopment. Personal growth was also positively related with the scalar score of the fine motor subscale. Findings from this study suggest that maternal personal growth during pregnancy is a predictor of the later infants´ neurodevelopment at 6 months of age.

  • Exploring the relationship between mental health and neuropsychological functioning in female survivors of IPV

    Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) refers to a series of physical, psychological, and/or sexual abuses exercised over another individual during an intimate relationship. Several mental health difficulties have been reported related to IPV, and recently neuropsychological alterations have been also described in this population. This study has three aims: first, to explore the existence of mental health-based groups in women with and without a history of IPV; second, to establish whether belonging to the IPV group is related to having a poorer mental health and finally, to establish if women with mental health has a lower neuropsychological functioning. Fourteen female survivors of physical and psychological IPV, and 14 matched control women (CG) were assessed for their mental health and neuropsychological functions. A mental health protocol was used to evaluate the variables of anxiety, depression, and perception of stress. In addition, a protocol of neuropsychological tests evaluated alternating attention, long-term memory, abstract thinking, learning, and interference control. Results showed that (1) participants were grouped into two clusters: better mental health and poorer mental health. The main grouping variable was anxiety. (2) Women with a history of IPV had poorer mental health, and (3) women with poorer mental health had lower attentional ability, long-term memory, abstract thinking and working memory. These findings show the importance of assessing anxiety, which is one of the predictors of mental health problems in victims of IPV. Furthermore, it is important to protocolize a form of assessment including neuropsychological variables.

  • Advisory Board
  • Editorial Board
  • Mahmoud Darwish: The Politics of Mourning and Catastrophe

    This article examines the ways in which Mahmoud Darwish's contrapuntal notion of memory, catastrophe, and mourning exhibit an aesthetic of freedom, intransigence and resistance. Darwish's intellectual and aesthetic project is primarily premised upon the pleasures and pitfalls of memory and catastrophe as a site of spatial and cultural resistance. For Darwish, memory and catastrophe are not only about the absence and presence of geography and home, but they are also metaphorical in every way. In The Presence of Absence (2011), Darwish argues that metaphors form a peculiar mode of geography and space. Drawing on Edward Said's notion of late style and Judith Butler's argument on the politics of mourning, this article sets out to examine the ways in which Darwish's Memory for Forgetfulness and In the Presence of Absence embody a radical form of aesthetic and intellectual praxis, writing against the grain and the politics of mourning.

  • كلمة التحرير: تحديات أداء البحث )العلمي( ووعود المنصات المفتوحة الوصول
  • الهيئة الإلإستشارية
  • Bethlehem University Journal: Instructions for Authors

Featured documents