Published on 23 January 2024
Hind Al Harbi – supervised by Professors Paul Farrand, Anna Adlam and Ken Laidlaw – recently passed her PhD with very minor corrections. Her PhD entitled ‘Development and Evaluation of a Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Intervention for Common Mental Health Problems Within Muslim Communities’ was undertaken to improve acceptability of CBT for Muslims. This was identified as an important area to address given poor access rates and recovery experienced by Muslims in England alongside an interest in reorganising mental health service delivery in Saudi Arabia. The PhD was focussed on adult Muslims in both Saudi Arabia and England with some interesting differences identified. Two papers have so far been published with three under development.
Results from the PhD have been used to inform cultural adaptations to a Low-Intensity CBT Problem Solving intervention into both English and Arabic. Alongside publications, Hind has also presented a poster at the Annual Conference of the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (2022) for which she won an award for Best Poster, and is convening a symposium on Improving Access to CBT for Muslims for the 2024 conference in Manchester. This includes speakers from Universities in Saudi Arabia, Canada and the UK. Hind has now taken up a post at the National Center for Mental Health Promotion, Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia, where she is at the forefront of the reorganisation of mental healthcare for which her PhD will be central in informing the implementation of culturally adapted low-intensity CBT.
