Mental health, resilience, and culturally congruent care among Muslim and Arab American women in the United States: a scoping review
- 1West Coast University - Ontario Campus , ,
Abstract
The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the evidence regarding mental health outcomes, wellbeing status, help-seeking patterns, and culturally congruent care for Muslim American, Arab American, and Arab Muslim American women within the U.S. healthcare system. The review was guided by the Arksey and O'Malley framework and reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. The search was guided by the Population, Concept, and Context (PCC) framework. Articles were sought from PubMed Central, CINAHL, and Scopus, targeting peer-reviewed articles published between 2016 and 2026. Data were analyzed through narrative synthesis. The review included 29 studies, and five overarching themes emerged: (1) high mental health burden across multiple domains; (2) multi-level barriers to help-seeking and care access; (3) discrimination, Islamophobia, and provider bias as structural stressors; (4) mental health vulnerabilities and unmet care needs during the perinatal period; and (5) resilience, faith, and culturally congruent care as protective factors. Mosque-based, culturally congruent, faith-integrated interventions have demonstrated good acceptability, although evidence of their effectiveness remains preliminary. These findings highlight the need for greater investment in cultural humility training for providers, disaggregated national data on mental health, and intersectional longitudinal studies to improve equitable mental health care for these populations.
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BibTeX
@article{mohammad2026mental,
title = {{Mental health, resilience, and culturally congruent care among Muslim and Arab American women in the United States: a scoping review}},
author = {Lina Mohammad},
journal = {Frontiers in global women's health},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fgwh.2026.1931567},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13720362},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Mental health, resilience, and culturally congruent care among Muslim and Arab American women in the United States: a scoping review
AU - Lina Mohammad
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
JO - Frontiers in global women's health
DO - 10.3389/fgwh.2026.1931567
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13720362
AB - The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the evidence regarding mental health outcomes, wellbeing status, help-seeking patterns, and culturally congruent care for Muslim American, Arab American, and Arab Muslim American women within the U.S. healthcare system. The review was guided by the Arksey and O'Malley framework and reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. The search was guided by the Population, Concept, and Context (PCC) framework. Articles were sought from PubMed Central, CINAHL, and Scopus, targeting peer-reviewed articles published between 2016 and 2026. Data were analyzed through narrative synthesis. The review included 29 studies, and five overarching themes emerged: (1) high mental health burden across multiple domains; (2) multi-level barriers to help-seeking and care access; (3) discrimination, Islamophobia, and provider bias as structural stressors; (4) mental health vulnerabilities and unmet care needs during the perinatal period; and (5) resilience, faith, and culturally congruent care as protective factors. Mosque-based, culturally congruent, faith-integrated interventions have demonstrated good acceptability, although evidence of their effectiveness remains preliminary. These findings highlight the need for greater investment in cultural humility training for providers, disaggregated national data on mental health, and intersectional longitudinal studies to improve equitable mental health care for these populations.
SN - 2673-5059
ER -