Under coordination and supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Ramallah, Prof. Yousef Al-Jeesh, who is the Dean of the Faculty of Nursing at the Islamic University, has led the examination session of a Doctoral thesis defense for Marwan Mosleh, a student from the Mid Sweden University.
The session also included Prof. Alexandra krettek from Norway, and professors from Sweden: Marina Taloyan, Mallin Rising Holmstrom, Stig Vinberg, and Teresa Silva.
Marwan Mosleh, who is a doctor now, has been conferred PhD Degree of Doctor of philosophy in Health Sciences from the Kingdom of Sweden after a four-hour panel session conducted via the Zoom program to examine the thesis. The thesis was put under the title of “Non Communicable Diseases and War Injured in Palestine: Burden, Incidence and Management in health system”.
The objective of this thesis was to analyze and describe the burden incidence and management of NCDs and war injuries in Palestine. What distinguished this research is that it is comprehensiveness and uses multiple research methods, especially quantitative, qualitative, and the DALYs for the first time to measure the burden of disease. The thesis revealed that the epidemic of NCDs especially heart disease, which was the leading causes of NCDs burden, and high number of war injuries impose a heavy burden on the health system. In addition, it showed that males had more injuries than females. Almost half of victims were of age 20-39 followed by children and individuals less than 20 years. Explosion was the major causes of injuries, where the largest proportion of injuries was in the upper body. It, also, revealed that important barriers were explored by patients and policy makers to managing war injuries or NCDs, including organizational structural, availability communication personal shortage of staff, and financial and political barriers; patients had similar experiences of barriers as the policy makers. In addition, they had socio economic, physical, and psychological barriers. The public hospitals do not work as they should because of many challenges and overburden of diseases. The researcher recommended that an immediate action should be initiated to tackle the burden of NCDs and war injuries in Palestine.
“The Journey of research was fruitful and spectacular in which I participated with scientific papers in well-known international conferences: in the Nobel Conference for Medical Sciences at Orebro University, in the Lancet conference, and in the First Palestine International Conference for the Wounded and Disabled; where I aim to support Palestinians health system,” said the researcher.
“The results of the thesis make additional high-quality contribution to the development of the Palestinian health system as it tackled the challenges and burdens of patients, staff, hospitals and the general health system” Prof. Al-Jeesh commented.
