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Breastfeeding is critical for maternal and child health, yet rates in Bulawayo remain suboptimal due to psychosocial barriers including stress, low maternal confidence, and weak social support. Current healthcare systems often neglect integrated psychological and community-based interventions. This study examined psychosocial challenges hindering breastfeeding practices and determined how integrated counselling and community psychology interventions can strengthen social support systems in Bulawayo clinics. Guided by Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory and Cohen and Wills' Social Support Theory, this qualitative study adopted an interpretivist philosophy and multiple case study design. Purposive sampling selected 20 breastfeeding mothers, 10 healthcare providers, and 5 counselling psychologists from Bulawayo clinics. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, and analysed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis framework. Two themes emerged: psychosocial challenges hindering breastfeeding, with subthemes of psychological distress and low self-efficacy, cultural beliefs and misconceptions (particularly intergenerational transmission of colostrum avoidance), and weak social support networks creating a "support vacuum". The second theme identified integrated interventions strengthening social support, including counselling psychology interventions addressing individual psychological needs, community psychology interventions reducing social isolation, and integrated collaborative approaches combining both strategies. Novel findings include the intergenerational transmission of harmful cultural beliefs and recognition that neither counselling nor community interventions alone are sufficient. Breastfeeding mothers in Bulawayo face significant psychosocial challenges requiring comprehensive support. Integrated counselling and community psychology interventions addressing both individual and systemic factors are essential but currently unavailable. Integrate counselling psychology services into routine maternal healthcare, establish community-based peer support networks, implement culturally sensitive education engaging elders and develop integrated intervention frameworks with adequate funding and training.
Background: Spatial navigation is integral to independence and quality of life; its impairment is a recognized but frequently underassessed sequela of stroke. The Way Finding Questionnaire (WFQ) is a validated 22-item self-report instrument that evaluates navigational ability across three domains Navigation and Orientation, Spatial Anxiety, and Distance Estimation and has demonstrated strong psychometric properties in Western populations. No Urdu-language version existed prior to this study, limiting its applicability within Pakistan's predominantly Urdu-speaking population.
Objective: To translate the original English WFQ into Urdu and to evaluate the validity and reliability of the resulting Urdu version (WFQ-U) in patients with stroke.
Methods: A cross-cultural validation study was conducted at Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, enrolling 70 stroke patients aged 18–65 years via convenience sampling. The translation followed the six-stage Beaton et al. framework, encompassing forward translation, synthesis, backward translation, expert committee review, pilot testing, and documentation submission. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha (internal consistency) and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC; test-retest reliability, one-week interval). Content validity was determined using the Content Validity Index (CVI). Concurrent validity was examined through Pearson correlation with the Floor Maze Test (FMT).
Results: The sample comprised 33 males (47.1%) and 37 females (52.9%), with a mean age of 46.91 ± 9.90 years. The mean total WFQ-U score was 75.29 ± 11.67. Cronbach's alpha was 0.987 (Day 1) and 0.977 (Day 3), indicating excellent internal consistency. The ICC for test-retest reliability was 0.825 (95% CI: 0.780–0.865). The overall CVI was 0.825. Pearson correlation between the WFQ-U and the FMT was r = 0.929 (p < 0.05), demonstrating strong concurrent validity.
Conclusion: The WFQ-U is a valid and reliable patient-reported outcome measure for assessing navigational ability in Urdu-speaking stroke patients. Its adoption in Pakistani clinical and research settings is recommended.
The 14-billion year journey of our universe has finally yielded human beings possessing absolutely fantastic potentials for continuing evolution. Even the sky is not the limit of where humanity might go in the future. And this is true for all 8 billion of us, based on interdisciplinary knowledge of human behavior. We all have the potential not only to fulfill our dreams, but to go far beyond them. We have the possibility of developing an Evolutionary Way of Life. However, we remain unable to fulfill our potentials because, from the very moment of birth, we all—and this included people like Einstein, Beethoven and Edison—experience a Bureaucratic Way of Life that stands in the way of humanity’s ability to reach for the stars. It is an overall way of living that involves (1) patterns of hierarchy with limited interaction, (2) narrow specialization with limited integration of knowledge, and (3) conformity with limited personal autonomy. Most recently, that general pattern of behavior has yielded dire threats to the human race in the form of an Invisible Crisis linked to the possibility of the very end of the human race through nuclear war, climate change or a pandemic. However, there is indeed a way out of these dangers for all of us, namely, the East-West Strategy. This is an approach that builds on the interdisciplinary vision of the renowned sociologist, C. Wright Mills, whose The Sociological Imagination was rated by the International Sociological Association as the 2nd most influential book for sociologists which had been published during the entire 20th century (the 1st was published by Max Weber, a founder of sociology). In this paper I present the nature of that strategy in some detail. Using this strategy, every single one of us can learn to fulfill his or her vast potentials.
The Middle East has remained a strategic central to United States Foreign policy largely because of its abundant petroleum resources and strategic geo-political position in the global oil politics. Since the end of the Second World War, successive American administrations have employed oil diplomacy as a key instrument for advancing national interests, ensuring energy security, safeguarding global oil markets, and maintaining political and military influence in the region (Mearsheimer, 2001). This paper examines the historical evolution of America’s oil diplomacy in the Middle East, with particular emphasis on its strategic objectives, diplomatic engagements, and the implications for regional and global politics. The paper adopts a quantitative historical research design and relies on secondary sources, such as scholarly books, peer-reviewed journal articles and in some extent government documents. The paper is guided with realist theory, the paper argues that, the United States has consistently integrated diplomatic, economic and military strategies but in the lens of lay man’s understanding always hide on the acquisition of nuclear weapons by those States she tags as rogue nations in the region. The above assertion, has helped America to protect her access to Middle East oil. The paper concludes that, America’s oil diplomacy has significantly influenced political developments, alliance formation, and security dynamics, just like the one currently playing on in Iran with America and her ally, Israel. The paper recommends that the United States pursue a more balanced foreign policy that promotes sustainable energy cooperation, regional stability, and multilateral diplomatic engagements in response to the evolving global energy security.
Githa Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces of Night reimagines Indian mythology and folklore through a feminist lens, critically examining the interplay between tradition, patriarchy, and female agency. The novel juxtaposes mythical narratives with the lived experiences of contemporary women, illustrating how cultural conditioning reinforces gender roles while also offering subversive spaces for resistance. Hariharan’s portrayal of Devi, Sita, and Mayamma reflects the constraints imposed on women by cultural expectations while also highlighting their varied modes of negotiation and defiance. Drawing from Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s theory of subalternity and Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s critique of Third World feminism, the paper examines how the female protagonists reclaim agency despite being relegated to the margins. Furthermore, it interrogates the role of mythology as both a tool of oppression and a site of potential emancipation. Critics such as Susie Tharu and K. Lalita have emphasized the need for reinterpreting classical narratives to uncover silenced female voices, a perspective that aligns with Hariharan’s literary strategy. By deconstructing the patriarchal underpinnings of myth and reality, this study argues that The Thousand Faces of Night offers a critical feminist discourse that challenges normative representations of Indian womanhood, advocating for self-definition beyond societal prescriptions.