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Medical students report a growing prevalence of mental health illnesses due to the medical school curriculum being considered challenging, lengthy, and leaving little time for leisure. Currently, several mental health apps are available and hold promise in terms of the diagnosis, monitoring, and management of mental health disorders. This study aimed to investigate medical students’ habits, attitudes, and intentions about using mental health applications. A survey questionnaire given to one hundred and thirty-three Moroccan medical students at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Casablanca and answered by one hundred and eleven of them was used to collect primary data. Improvements in the management and monitoring of mental health illnesses as well as a reduction in environmental costs as a result of a decrease in patient travel to mental healthcare facilities are the most obvious reasons why medical students perceive mental health applications to be useful. The findings also indicate that medical students are less familiar with mental health apps and use them less frequently than other mobile health apps. Furthermore, downloading a mental health app, being diagnosed with mental health issues, and perceiving mobile mental health apps to be useful don’t ensure their active use among medical students. Therefore, more research on the determinants of the use of mobile mental health apps is needed. Those related to environmental protection must also be considered.

Context: The development of palliative care is still in its primitive state in Lebanon and few studies assessed the views of caregivers on the quality of support of their patients and the difficulties they encounter. We evaluate the perspective of caregivers and the relatives in regard to the quality of support to the terminally ill patients., Method: A cross-sectional descriptive, analytic and comparative study is carried out between September and October 2010, among two groups - Group 1: Health professionals from a university hospital in Beirut; Group 2 : Relatives of recently deceased persons following a chronic, incurable disease., Results: We received 447 responses: 358 in the hospital from caregivers (80%) and 89 in the city from relatives (20%). The management of physical problems of patients at end of life is considered adequate by 68% of caregivers while only 40% believe that psychological problems are managed adequatly. Physical difficulties most often encountered are intractable pain (44%) ; psychological problems frequently noted at this stage are depression (40%), anxiety (18%) and fear of death (115%). Caregivers (69%) and relatives (62%) are in favor of informing the patient about the seriousness of his illness; and physicians more frequently than nurses (75% vs 675%, p = 0.002). Relatives (75%) and caregivers (73%) believe that today in Lebanon, the terminally ill patients do not die in peace and dignity (p = 0.022). 71% of caregivers vs 62% of relatives consider that intensive medications are used in cancer patients (p < 0.001) and non-cancer patients (61% caregivers vs 60% of relatives; p > 0.05)., Conclusion: The management of terminally ill patients and their families must be improved. Palliative care services adapted to the cultural, social and economic characteristics of the country, and involving the private and public sectors should be integrated into the current health system.