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Background: Socio-economic burden of breast cancer is substantial in low and middle income countries. Therefore, preventive measures are necessary, including raise of population awareness and education on the risk factors. This study aims to assess the general awareness of cancer among Casablanca medical students, with a focus on risk factors for breast cancer. Methods: A cross sectional study using a questionnaire on risk factors of breast cancer was carried out. Participants were randomly selected using a stratified sampling. Results: A total of 678 students participated in the survey. Just over half of the cases (53.2%) reported knowing breast cancer risk factors with a 95% confidence interval of [49.5%; 57.0%]. The main sources of information regarding their knowledge of breast cancer risk factors reported by students were represented by the faculty and media with a similar proportion of 20.6% of cases. The average number of correct responses was statistically different depending on the students’ level of education and whether they had a family history of cancer. Indeed, the average correct responses increased with the year of study, so the lowest average was noted among first-year students with 11 responses versus 15 correct responses out of 23 among sixth-year students and a degree of significance less than 0,001. Similarly, for those who reported a family history of cancer, their average correct response was 14.4 versus 13.2 for those having no relatives with cancer (p< 0.001). Conclusion: Our medical students’ knowledge on breast cancer risk factors is very weak. These future doctors play an important key role in educating people and raising awareness on breast cancer in our country. Therefore, priority programs and training should be put in place to insure successful and knowledgeable doctors.

Introduction: The ability to name pictures has been investigated widely in healthy people and clinical populations. The Object and Action Naming Battery (OANB) is widely used for psycholinguistic research, aphasia research, and clinical practice. Normative databases for pictorial stimuli have been conducted in language processing studies to control for various psycholinguistic variables known to affect the availability of picture names. The present study provides Moroccan Arabic norms for name agreement, familiarity, imageability, visual complexity, and age of acquisition for 100 line drawings of actions and 162 line drawings of objects taken from Druks and Masterson. Methods and procedures: 160 healthy Moroccan Arabic-speaking individuals participated in this study. Name agreement values for the OANB items were collected from forty subjects, followed by collecting data for the psycholinguistic variables: spoken-word frequency, imageability, visual complexity, and age of acquisition from 120 participants. Results: The Moroccan Arabic OANB (MA-OANB) comprises 70 objects and 60 action pictures. 77% of the nouns and 68% of the verbs obtained 100% target responses. A minimum of 93 percent name agreement was reached for the remaining items. Norms were also collected for the following psycholinguistic variables: spoken-word frequency, imageability, age of acquisition, and visual complexity. Conclusion: The stimuli can be used for various psycholinguistic investigations and also for assessment and therapeutic purposes in Morocco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) is widely used for dementia screening. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, to cross-culturally adapt the Moroccan Arabic version of MMSE (MA-MMSE) to screen dementia among literate and illiterate elderly Moroccans, and second to analyze its psychometric properties. The MA-MMSE was administered to 80 elderly patients, 28 were females and 52 were males. Among all the participants, 22 showed evidence of dementia. Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC), internal consistency, and test–retest reliability were investigated. The test–retest reliability was assessed by Spearman correlation analysis. Cronbach's α coefficients for internal consistency between total scores and subscores of the test were calculated. Areas under the ROC curve in literate and illiterate elderly Moroccans participants corresponded to 0.932 and 0.936, respectively. The cutoff point of 21/22 on the MA-MMSE in literate elderly had the highest sensitivity (85.7%), specificity (94.7%), and a positive likelihood ratio of (16.29%), whereas the cutoff point of 18/19 of the screening test in illiterate elderly yielded the highest sensitivity (92.9%), specificity (95.0%), and a positive likelihood ratio of (18.57%). The Cronbach's α values of the MA-MMSE for literate and illiterate elderly Moroccans were higher than 0.7. Thirty subjects were randomly selected for participation in the test–retest protocol. Participants were retested after an interval of 4–6 weeks. The test–retest reliability for total scores was significant 0.78 (p < 0.01). The findings provide preliminary evidence that the MA-MMSE is a feasible instrument for dementia screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the effect of metacognitive reading strategy intervention in English on helping Moroccan learners reversely transfer metacognitive reading strategies from English (L3) into French (L2). In particular, it investigated whether an improvement in metacognitive reading strategy in English (L3) would lead to an improvement in reading comprehension achievements in French (L2). 67 eleventh-grade students were purposively selected and randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 35) and a control group (n = 32). All participants were administered the Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire (Abu-Rabia, S. (2019). The effect of degrees of bilingualism on metacognitive linguistic skills. International Journal of Bilingualism, 23(5), 1064–1086. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006918781060) and a reading comprehension pre-test and post-test in English and French. Only the experimental group received training in metacognitive reading strategies (MCRS) in English. The difference between metacognitive strategy awareness levels and reading comprehension scores before and after the intervention was examined using one-way-MANOVA. Results indicated a significant improvement in the experimental group's metacognitive strategy awareness and reading comprehension scores in both English and French. Based on these results, we suggest that learners of English as a foreign language should be explicitly trained in the use of MCRS, and a link between the different languages taught at school should be established. Thus, metacognitive reading strategies and skills acquired in one language can be positively transferred to another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-linguistic studies on agrammatism have provided evidence that tense inflection is severely impaired while agreement inflection is relatively preserved (Friedmann & Grodzinsky 1997, Benedet et al., 1998). More recent evidence has suggested that the tense deficit is central, affecting comprehension as well. To account for this pattern of performance, a number of hypotheses have been suggested, making different predictions about the nature of the tense deficit in agrammatism. The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the centrality of a tense-agreement dissociation in Moroccan Arabic agrammatism, and (2) to determine task effects on agrammatic performance. We presented results from a picture description, two sentence completion and a grammaticality judgement task with five Moroccan Arabic-speaking agrammatic patients and five matched neurologically normal adults. Control participants performed at ceiling across all the experimental tasks used. PWAA revealed different patterns of performance. Findings from both picture description and sentence completion tasks indicated a dissociation between tense and agreement production, with tense being more error-prone than agreement. The tense-agreement dissociation found in production extended to the comprehension modality in the sense that patients were less sensitive to tense than to agreement violations. Findings indicated task effects on performance with patients performing differently across different experimental tasks. Findings of the present study argue in disfavour of a structural or representational account of the tense deficit in agrammatism. The interaction between task effects and tense accuracy suggests that the deficit can best be characterized in processing terms, particularly being a manifestation of limited working memory capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigated eleventh-grade students' metacognitive awareness of reading strategy use in Arabic (L1) and English (L3). In particular, (i) it examined whether there is any association between the use of MCRS in a reading comprehension task in English and Arabic among trilingual learners, and (ii) whether the application of MCRS when doing reading comprehension tasks in these languages predicted the reading comprehension scores in both languages. This study included 42 eleventh-grade students from a public high school in Morocco. The Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire (MRSQ), (Abu-Rabia, 2018), was utilized along with two reading comprehension tests, one in Arabic and one in English. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to see whether there is any connection between the use of MCRS in English and those used in Arabic. Multiple linear regression analyses were employed to predict the reading comprehension scores in Arabic and English based on MCRS use. Results revealed a significant correlation between the use of MCRS in both languages. MCRS were found to be underused among lower-achievers. Furthermore, the application of MCRS predicted higher reading comprehension scores in both study languages. Based on the findings, the study discusses some practical implications of MCRS use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The malocclusion index questionnaire (MIQ) is widely used in research and clinical practice. To our knowledge, there are no studies of its use in Moroccan patients. Aim. The objective of this study was to translate and culturally adapt the malocclusion impact questionnaire (MIQ) into Moroccan Arabic and to assess its reliability and validity among a sample of young Moroccan teenagers. The PIDAQ was cross-culturally adapted into Malay version by forward- and backward-translation processes, followed by psychometric validation. Materials and Methods. The MIQ was cross-culturally adapted into Moroccan Arabic by forward- and backward-translation processes, followed by psychometric validations. The MIQ was completed by a representative sample of 94 Moroccan adolescents aged 12–17 years selected randomly from five public schools of Casablanca. Internal consistency reliability was determined from Cronbach's alpha, and the intraclass coefficient of the item scores was obtained in 1 month in a subset of 30 subjects. Data were analyzed using the Statistical SPSS software, version 16.0, SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA. Results. The MIQ was completed twice by each participant at one-month interval to assess test reliability; the intraclass coefficient was r = 0.958, showing an excellent reproducibility. The internal consistency demonstrated the reliability of the questionnaire with Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.917. The validity of the questionnaire was assessed by evaluation of the relationship between the total scores of the MIQ and normative need for orthodontic treatment according to ICON. The questionnaire showed an insignificant correlation (0.129, p < 0.05). Conclusion. The Moroccan Arabic version of the MIQ was found to be reliable, whereas it has unacceptable validity according to ICON, and hence, it is unlikely to be a useful measure in orthodontic clinical trials for Moroccan adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This study aimed to cross-culturally translate and adapt the Child-Oral Impacts on Daily Performance (OIDP) measure into Moroccan Arabic and assess its reliability and validity. Materials and Methods: The original Child-OIDP was translated from English into Moroccan Arabic and back again. The Moroccan version of the Child-OIDP instrument was, then, validated on 11-14-year-old school children in Casablanca, Morocco, who responded to questions assessing their perceived oral problems. Results: The study revealed that the average score of Child-OIDP was 8.3 (standard deviation 8.7). Internal consistency was confirmed with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.58; the testing-retesting procedures showed a satisfactory reproducibility (r = 0.93). The convergent validity was very satisfactory; the Child-OIDP score increased when the children had dental problems. The Child-OIDP score was able to discriminate the different sociodemographic groups. Conclusion: The study showed that the Moroccan version of the Child-OIDP had satisfactory psychometric properties, and is, therefore, a valid and reliable instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study presents results from picture description, sentence completion and grammaticality judgment tasks with four MA-speaking Broca's aphasic subjects and four age, sex, and education matched control subjects investigating tense and agreement markers. Specifically, the study explores tense and agreement disassociation in agrammatic speakers of Moroccan Arabic as predicted by the Tree-Pruning Hypothesis (Friedmann & Grodzinsky 1997) with extension of the inquiry to determine whether the disassociation is production-specific and/or modality-specific. For all experimental tasks, it was found out that the 4 MA-speaking Broca's aphasic subjects achieved high correctness scores for agreement, while tense was impaired. The results of the study suggest that the tense/agreement dissociation reported for Hebrew (Friedmann & Grodzinsky 1997) and German (Wenzlaff & Clahsen 2004) can be replicated in Moroccan Arabic. However, the syntactic account as outlined in Friedmann and Grodzinsky (1997) cannot account for the tense/agreement dissociation because Moroccan Arabic has the agreement node above the tense node. Based on results from the study, it is argued that the production deficit in Moroccan Arabic agrammatism cannot be explained in terms of the Tree-Pruning Hypothesis, but rather in terms of a processing account that takes the view that access to syntactic knowledge is blocked; grammatical knowledge, however, is entirely intact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The aim of this study was to describe the behavior of Moroccan parents toward their children's chronic pain., Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in different hospital wards. Parents of hospitalized children with chronic pain aged six or over participated in the study. The parents' behavior toward their children's pain was assessed using an Arabic version of the Adult Responses to Children's Symptoms (ARCS) scale. The scores for each dimension were calculated by summing the responses of the items related to that dimension, and then they were normalized to obtain scores ranging from 0 to 100. The comparison of scores was performed using Student's t-test or ANOVA. The association between quantitative variables was assessed using a correlation coefficient., Results: A total of 100 parents of children with chronic pain participated in the study. The children's average age was 10.0 ± 2.7 years. The majority of children (62%) experienced pain for more than six months. The joints were the most common location of pain (43%), followed by the abdomen (35%). The "Protect" and "Monitor" dimensions had good reliability with Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.80 and 0.69, respectively. The highest mean normalized scores were noted for the "Monitor" and "Protect" dimensions, with means of 82.1 and 70.8, respectively. The "Minimize" dimension had the lowest mean score of 41.4. Parental behavior was not linked to child- or pain-related characteristics. There was no difference in how mothers and fathers behaved towards their children's pain., Conclusion: Parents of children with chronic pain in Morocco scored higher on all dimensions of the ARCS, with the highest scores in the "protect" and "monitor" dimensions. These behaviors can negatively affect children's somatic symptoms, functional disability, and anxiety. Our study revealed the importance of providing support to both children and parents of children with chronic pain to manage the pain and related behaviors., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2023, Bendahhou et al.)

High incidence rates of cervical cancer are still common in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with ineffective prevention policies. This study assessed Moroccan women's knowledge and practices regarding the cervical cancer screening program. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2019 in four primary healthcare centers in Casablanca. Women over the age of 18 who came to these centers during the study period were invited to participate in the study. The variables collected were related to women's knowledge of cervical cancer, the screening program, and their reasons for not participating in the screening program. The main risk factors identified by the participants were multiple sexual partners (4.3%) and sexually transmitted diseases (4%). About 77% of the cases (95% confidence interval (CI): 72.1%; 80.4%) knew that a cervical cancer screening program exists in Morocco. However, a small proportion had an idea about the population targeted by the program (46%) and the recommended interval between two screening tests (20%). Only 28% (95% CI: 19.2%; 38.2%) of eligible women had ever been screened for cervical cancer. These results underline the importance of implementing a communication strategy to increase women's awareness of the cervical screening program and their involvement in it., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2023, Bendahhou et al.)

Introduction: Recently, an important literature data has reported that medical students experience stress more than students in other disciplines. In contrast, there is a significant shortage of the stress impact on the academic performance. The primary purpose of our study was to determine the prevalence of stress among Casablanca Medical students and to investigate if there is an association between stress and academic skills., Methods: A total of 275 participants studying at Casablanca Medical School were included. The study was conducted using a self-administered, anonymous questionnaire, which included four subscales on academic skills perception (Academic competence, Test competence, Time management and Strategic study habits) and a Test Anxiety scale to assess the degree of stress related to exams among medical students., Results: The overall findings showed that 52.7% of respondents were stressed by examinations, and the highest stress prevalence was among the fifth-year medical students. Measures of comparative stress degrees between male and female students did not show any statistical significant differences (p=0.34). Correlation analysis revealed negative association between stress and academic competence (-0.394), test competence (-0.426), time management (-0.240), strategic study (-0.183) respectively (p<0.001)., Conclusion: Medical educators and psychologists have to increase clinical awareness of stress among medical students, by establishing strategies for stress management.

This study aims to investigate the factors that motivate dental students to choose dentistry as a career. A questionnaire-based survey involving 752 dental students from the only two Moroccan dental schools was conducted between April and May 2011. The questionnaire was designed in terms of financial factors, human factors and working conditions factors. The students were asked to rank the career choices' set of questions on a five point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The internal reliability of the scale was investigated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and validity was investigated by a confirmatory principal component analysis. Results indicate that dentistry has a noble function; the "desire to help people" and "job opportunities" determines career choice among Moroccan dental students. Another result that emerged from the study is that men were motivated by working conditions factors (p=0.025) while women were motivated by human factors (p=0.001). In brief, the results of the present study can be used by health policy makers to persuade students to pursue dentistry as a career.