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People with visual impairment in the public service sector face various issues and challenges in their work. Among the issues that visually impaired employees often face are transportation, skills and vocational training, education level, negative employer attitudes, lack of policy enforcement, and an environment that is not conducive to work. Besides that, visually impaired employees also have special needs compared to other workers. Therefore, this study was conducted to explore the needs of visually impaired employees in the public service sector. The design of this study is a case study using a qualitative method which is a semi-structured interview. This study was conducted around the Klang Valley area involving four informants consisting of three men and one woman. Interview recordings were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically. This study shows that there are three main needs for visually impaired employees in the public service sector, namely in terms of transportation needs, accessibility at work and convenience at work. Therefore, this study suggests that stakeholders take pro steps in meeting the needs of visually impaired employers in the public service sector so that their well-being can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will discuss the findings of a study that has been conducted to explore the challenges of women with physical disabilities (OKU) in entrepreneurship. The scope of the exploration involves the start-up phase of the business which requires the informant to tell the experience of facing initial challenges in the business. The study was designed using a fully qualitative approach with data collection using the Focus Group Discussion method. The study location involves four Malaysian zones, namely the North, East, Central and South zones. A total of 34 physically disabled women who are traders were selected to be interviewed. The selection of informants was made purposefully by choosing the recipients of the Malaysian Social Welfare Department's launch grant. The thematic analysis carried out shows that there are three main challenges faced by informants during the phase of starting a business, namely: i- lack of access to information, ii- implications of physical disability and iii- dual role challenges. The results of the study give implications to stakeholders' efforts to improve the achievement of empowering women with physical disabilities in starting a business. In addition, this paper also discusses the scientific justification for the proposal for the construction of the Economic Empowerment Model (Entrepreneurship) for Physically Disabled Women as an output of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volunteer service is a continuous effort in contributing towards the development and prosperity of a country. It begins with an interest that is mobilized individually or in groups to meet the social challenges of society. However, the study of volunteer service in the field of Islamic preaching to people with disabilities is poorly studied. Therefore, this study focuses on the literature related to the factors of volunteer service involvement in previous studies and then it will integrate the findings of previous studies to explore the volunteer services of da’wah to people with disabilities to be studied. This qualitative research method applies the design of document analysis and guided by systematic literature review (SLR) as a basis. The results show that there are certain factors that contribute to the engagement in volunteer service. The findings show the previous studies focus more on community social services rather than da’wah for people with disabilities. Therefore, the study of volunteer services and da’wah for people with disabilities should be highlighted to encourage community members to aware, care, take responsible towards humanity including special needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 pandemic is a public health issue. From 2019 to 2022, 4.5 million people died from the COVID-19 epidemic. Consequently, COVID-19 has put a significant strain on every single creature in this world. COVID-19 has been associated with lockdown, thus resulting in lockdown related inequities towards most people in this world, with unanticipated consequences for people with disabilities. Building in this debate, this paper aimed to discuss on the impacts of COVID-19 on the physical health of People with Intellectual Disabilities. Based on the Prisma protocol, this systematic literature review examined 28 publications from Web Sources of Science and Scopus.The study identified three themes regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the physical environment of people with intellectual disabilities namely mental health, social isolation, severe health problems, socioeconomic and psychology. This study has significant implications in understanding how PWID are impacted by COVID 19 and urged that early preventative measures should be taken since People with Intellectual Disabilities are considered a vulnerable population, therefore it is crucial to ensure that their health status are sustained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Care of a disabled patient after an accident requires long-term care as the caregiver does not know when the patient will recover and usually care is done informally at home. In this study, researchers focused on financial burden and the impact of financial burden on informal care. In-depth interviews were conducted with ten respondents living around Kuala Terengganu and were the primary caregivers for patients who were disabled after the accident. The data were analyzed manually to provide further details of this study. The results of the study found that the three main financial burdens experienced by informal caregivers are the cost of care expenses, utility costs and patient medical as well as limited financial resources. The effects of the financial burden in this study are changes in terms of physical and psychological health of caregivers, deterioration of family relationships and limited caregiver time. The results of this study are expected to benefit informal caregivers, social workers, institutions and departments involved, researchers and so on in improving the social functionality of informal caregivers in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to identify the challenges faced by counsellors practising counselling for people with disabilities in the hospital. A qualitative research had been used to conduct the study with semi structured interview as the main tool used to explore counsellors' challenges. The study interviewed five informants who are registered counsellors and having working experience in the hospitals around Klang Valley. The study results revealed that counsellors' challenges on giving effective counselling to disabilities are rejection from clients, lack of knowledge and skillset on intervening disabilities, unrealistic expectations from others, multicultural counselling, and lack of support from clients' family members. This study also suggests creating a new SOP to make the counselling services approached quickly by disabled clients compared to the current practice to which the doctor is referring. Disabled clients should go through a counselling session after discharge from the hospital to make sure they are well balanced emotionally dan towards accepting themselves. At the same time, this study suggests a new learning module in higher institutions that integrate clinical knowledge and more exposure to disability studies to create calibre counsellors. Counsellors who are well versed in both clinical and psychological knowledge may assist disabled clients more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caring for frail elderly (WEU) at home can be challenging and affects the needs of informal caregivers. In Malaysia, not many studies were focused on caregivers. Therefore, this study aims to explore the unmet needs (KTD) among frail elderly caregivers at home. The design of this study is qualitative with a phenomenological approach. This study was carried out in the district of Hulu Langat, Selangor using a sampling technique with inclusion criteria. A total of six frail elderly caregivers were successfully interviewed and identified through the UKM’s Pensioners Association, UKM’s Senior Citizens Activity Centre (PAWE) and the Local Residents' Associations. The data was analyzed thematically using manual analysis. The results of the study showed that five themes of KTD were experienced by caregivers in terms of emotional wellbeing, health problems, social needs, rest and sleep as well as work impact. All caregivers had at least one KTD and emotional well-being was the most frequently reported. There are caregivers who are so stressed and leave a negative impact on the WEU’s body. A few caregivers suffer from health problems including depression, anxiety, underweight, back pain and hand pain. Their social needs are also very limited and most caregivers are not involved in community activities. Caregivers also do not enjoy adequate rest and sleep. There are caregivers who quit their jobs to focus on caregiving. In conclusion, KTD among caregivers has a great impact on them selves and their WEUs. In fact, this problem has a high risk of contributing to more serious cases of abuse. Therefore, support for these caregivers needs to be paid attention to by all parties so that the KTD among caregivers can be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: The present study is designed to evaluate the effect of individual psychoeducation intervention based on integrated self-awareness and self-determination theories (i-SEAZ) toward self-efficacy among opioid-dependent patients in methadone treatment (MT). Methodology: 75 opioid-dependent participants who were on MT under Ministry of Health Malaysia from five Methadone Clinics in Klang Valley were evaluated on the effectiveness of the i-SEAZ intervention. The experiment group comprised 38 participants, who received ten sessions of individual i-SEAZ alongside MT, while 37 participants of the control group only received MT. The effectiveness of the intervention was assessed by the General Self Efficacy Questionnaire (GSE), with ten items. The assessment was performed two times; the first was two weeks before the initiation of i-SEAZ (as pretest), and the second was two weeks after i-SEAZ was completed (as posttest). Findings: The extracted data were analysed by ANCOVA using SPSS-20. The findings showed there was a significant improvement in the i-SEAZ scores between experiment and control groups at posttest (p = 0.000). It is concluded that the intervention of i-SEAZ is associated with a significant increase in self-efficacy among substance-dependent patients in Methadone Clinics. Contributions: This study is hoped to contribute to the psychologists and counselors at addiction clinics, treatment institutions and communities in adopting the i-SEAZ module to improve self-efficacy among patients in substance abuse treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conceptualisation of disability is contested globally and issues in gender studies further complicate the movement towards the development of an inclusive and equal society. However, most disability and gender research studies are based on the data collected in the Global North, and little is known about disabled women in the Global South. The data presented here is from a bigger study focusing on the lived experiences of women with disabilities. This paper sets to explore how disabled women in Malaysia experience their lives in terms of marriage and motherhood prospects. The data of this qualitative study was collected from a set of in-depth interviews involving 32 women in Malaysia with physical (mobility) impairment. Over a period of 6 months, 16 Malays, 8 Chinese and 8 Indian women were interviewed twice. The analysis proposes both retrospective and introspective accounts on marriage and motherhood. The data gathered from the in-depth interviews was transcribed and analysed thematically with the help of NVivo software. The findings indicated that most participants have experienced significant barriers concerning individual constraints, familial control, and societal barriers. These were discussed with the intrinsic aspects and contextual factors of living in a patriarchal and traditional society that significantly undermined the wellbeing of disabled women in this study. Nevertheless, many of those interviewed refused to give up their hope of having a family life despite the constant struggles they encountered in their pursuit of happiness. However, their aspirations to experience family life were restricted and this caused them to experience significant psycho-emotional problems. They were constantly reminded that they were 'disabled' and not worthy of experiencing life like other women. The paper will discuss these challenges and negative societal attitudes towards the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study was aimed to identify self-awareness of patients who received drug addiction treatment using substitute drugs Methadone. It was conducted on 50 patients in a Private Clinic at Kajang Selangor, under the supervision of the Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH). This study was a quantitative approached using a questionnaire. The findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics which included frequency distribution, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The Scale for Self-Consciousness Assessment (SSCA) was used to measure Self Awareness aspects. This questionnaire has 24 items and applies 5point Likert scale and measures two sub constructs, namely Private Self Awareness (KKP) and Public Self Awareness (KKU). The findings showed that the overall aspect of respondents' self-awareness were similar in the mean values, and the means of KKP and KKU were above 3.00. Additionally, the findings also showed the factors that were in KKP namely Self Reflective and Self-Knowledge, as well as the factors in KKU namely Appearance and Matching Social have no significance differences in mean values and no factor was found dominant. Overall, self awareness of respondents were good and SSCA instrument has great potential to be promoted as a measuring psychometric instrument for other samples. It is recommended to further explore the aspect of self-awareness with other variables such as Self Determination or Self Efficacy to explore more about selfconcept of drug addicts in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Code-switching has been used in many languages by many different groups of people or speech communities, but little is known about how and why they are used as communicative strategies in modern song lyrics. This paper aims to explore and describe the recent phenomenon of English code-switching in modern Malay songs. 25 modern Malay songs were selected and analysed using Content Analysis. The analysis was made based on Poplack' Theory as well as the functions of code-switching proposed by Appel and Musyken. Two types of codeswitching commonly used in modern Malay songs were discovered. They were intrasentential and intersentential code-switching. The classification of the functions of code-switching was then made based on the six functions of code-switching, which are referential, directive, expressive, phatic, metalinguistic, and poetic. The findings of this research also indicate other functions of code-switching that demonstrate bilingual creativity among songwriters in Malaysia. In conclusion, the findings of this study indicated that code switching in Modern Malay songs is not just a random switch from one code to another but carries certain social functions that emphasize on the establishment of people's intimacy, solidarity and local identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living with a disabled person can bring significant effects to the entire family members especially for parents, siblings and next of kin because they need to undergo a peculiar experience which can influence different aspect of family functioning. Thus, this article examines coping strategies of mothers who take care of their child with Cerebral Palsy disability. Data is collected using a qualitative approach among six mothers who have a child with Cerebral Palsy disability. In-depth interview was conducted to gather information regarding informants' coping strategies in taking care of their children. All the informants who took part in this study were mothers in the age range between 33 to 52 years old with an average income rate between RM1,200 to RM3,000 and have two to three children. The findings also indicate that informants' practiced four types of coping strategies namely; (i) self-control, (ii) social support, (iii) accepting responsibilities and (iv) solving problems with a proper planning in overcoming stress and crisis in their life. As an overall impact, the study provided implications to the concerned parties to empower and emancipate mothers by providing effective psychological counselling to overcome challenges in taking care of their disabled child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was conducted to identify psychological factors influencing effective volunteer behaviour in the Kuala Lumpur 2017 Games that was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The research employed quantitative study with online survey method. A psychometric test with 40 items was adminsitered on the research participants consisting of three instruments namely Personality Questionnaire, Achievement Motivation Questionnaire and Effective Volunteer Behaviour Questionnaire. The data were analysed using descriptive and correlational statistics with a computer assisted software - 'Statistical Package for the Social Science for Windows' (SPSS for Windows). The majority of volunteers participated in the Kuala Lumpur 2017 Games were females, Z generation aged between 16 to 25 years old and coming from Central Malaysia zone. The findings also examined that to be effective volunteers, the individuals should acquire high level of Openness, Conscientiousnes and Agreeableness personality traits and low level of Neuroticism. Besides, Motivation of Improvement, Motivation of Status and Motivation of Relationships are also important to complete their tasks effectively. Nevertheless, when both the psychological factors of Personality and Achievement Motivation were combined, not all dimensions have direct influence towards effective volunteer behaviours. The study suggests that appropiate measures should be taken to encourage more participation amongst male to be volunteers and to empower the potential of university students as effective volunteers. In addition, the relevant dimensions of Personality and Achievement Motivation could be employed by interested parties in selecting effective volunteers for their volunteerism activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Malaysian government has developed significant disability provision, policies and legislations since the period of colonialism but disabled people still encounter major barriers in education and training. Research involving Malaysian disabled women in terms of education and training is very limited although disability is argued to have some relation to gender and culture. This paper therefore sets to explore how Malaysian women with physical impairment experience their opportunity for education and training. This study used a full qualitative research approach in which the data was collected from in-depth interviews with 33 Malaysian women with physical (mobility) impairment. Over a period of 6 months, 17 Malays, 8 Chinese and 8 Indian women were interviewed twice in Peninsular Malaysia. The majority of women came from low-income and rural families. The findings demonstrated that many of the women had limited access to education and training due to structural and attitudinal barriers. Hence, their situation was exacerbated by complex interactions between individual, familial, sociocultural and gender factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case management of Persons with Disabilities (PWD) particularly the mental category has been scarcely studied in Malaysia. With mental illness rapidly growing into a public health issue, more research especially in the aspects of case management is needed. In relation to that, this paper aimed to explore on the challenges in case management that case workers for persons with mental disabilities (PWMD) faced in Malaysia. This qualitative study conducts in-depth interviews twice with 10 case workers from Medical Social Work Department and Social Welfare Department. Data were analysed thematically using content analysis method. The study discovered that challenges arise were negative perception towards PWMD, lack of specialized trainings, and lack of effective collaborations between agencies. The findings suggest that the Health Ministry and Welfare Department should enhance collaboration between them in getting their resources such as information and manpower together in fulfilling the needs of PWMD. On top of that, the study highlights the importance of case workers' roles in brokering between the agencies in order to increase client functionality in society. This paper is important for policy makers to take into account the needs and the capacity of the PWMD and also caseworkers to ensure the effectiveness of both welfare and health services. Thus, the case management services for persons with mental disabilities will be improved which are aligned with Malaysia's social work competency standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia is a collective society that places emphasis on unity and a sense of belonging to the family. This article sets out the role played by families with disabled children, especially how family impacts on the lives of these children in relation to their disability experiences. Thirty-three Malaysian women with physical impairments were interviewed twice with questions designed to explore their childhood experiences. The findings showed that in the absence of adequate welfare support, the majority of participants were supported by their families and thus family had a pivotal role in their early lives. Ironically however, the inadequacy of the welfare state in terms of support for accessible housing, education and training forced them to live away from their family. This led them to experience both physical and psychological isolation. Additionally, the emotional load resulting from this combination of circumstances contributed to sibling rivalry and conflict within their families. This study therefore concludes that state-led multi- agencies should work together in providing supporting mechanisms to enable disabled children to live at home, which would include the provision of financial resources, accessible housing and psycho-social support. Working parents, for example, should be given financial incentives to employ carers, and to have additional support given by daily care centres for special needs children. Likewise, effective psychological and counselling services should be provided for disabled children and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]