THE FEDERATION OF STUDENT ISLAMIC SOCIETIES PROGRAMME TO CHALLENGE MENTAL HEALTH STIGMA IN MUSLIM COMMUNITIES IN IRELAND: THE FOSIS DUBLIN STUDY

Background: Mental health problems are common in Muslim communities however due to fear of exposure to stigmatization many people in this group continue to suffer in silence despite the availability of effective treatment. The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) organized the first ever Muslim mental health conference in Ireland to challenge the stigma attached to mental health problems in Muslims and to encourage care seeking in this group. As far as the authors are aware there are no intervention studies on mental health stigma in Muslim communities reported in the literature. Design: We conducted a single arm, pre-post comparison study on Muslims who attended the FOSIS mental health conference in University College Dublin, Ireland. Validated stigma scales measuring knowledge (Mental Health Knowledge Schedule (MAKS)), attitudes (Community Attitudes towards the Mentally Ill (CAMI)) and behaviour (Reported and Intended Behaviour Scale (RIBS)) were administered on participants before exposure to the programme and immediately afterwards. Results: 18/150 (12%) of participants completed the pre-post RIBS scale and pre-post MAKS scale and 16/150 (10.5%) of participants completed the pre-post CAMI scale. There were statistically significant differences in the pre-RIBS score compared to the post-RIBS score (p=0.0262) and the pre-MAKS score compared to the post-MAKS score (p=0.0003) but not in the pre-CAMI score compared to the post-CAMI score (p=0.6214). Discussion: To the best of our knowledge, the FOSIS Dublin Study is the first intervention study on mental health stigma in Muslim communities to be published. The results of our study provide provisional support that a ‘bespoke’ Muslim mental health conference comprised of talks and workshops by experts in mental health, scholars in Islam and a lecture delivered by a Muslim with first-hand experience of a mental health problem are associated with reductions in stigma. More robust research with a longitudinal study design, larger sample sizes and a control group are needed to determine if such events can cause a sustained reduction in mental health stigma in Muslim communities