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The banking sector in West Asia has always experienced positive growth except for Palestine. Apart from some negligible outlying outcomes in some countries that have faced political crises and war, most West Asian countries have gained bank profitability and efficiency. However, the stability in the banking sector has been rarely examined in the literature. Hence, this study sheds light on examining bank stability by considering 12 countries in West Asia.

A fixed effect panel data regression analysis is employed on strongly balanced panel data using data from 2004 to 2018.

Results reveal that the net interest margin has a positive relationship with bank stability. The bank’s stability rises as the net interest margin improves. Furthermore, the non-interest income reveals a positive significant impact on the stability of banks, depicting that the increase in non-interest income increases the stability of banks. Additionally, the non-interest expense also reveals positive significant results with the stability of banks. Nevertheless, leverage ratio and long-term debt portray a negative significant impact on banks’ stability. The finding reveals that higher long-term debt and leverage ratios may decrease the stability of the banks in West Asia.

Overall, the authors’ findings add to the literature on the stability of the banks by providing some new but significant information. Some of the recommendations may be beneficial to the long-term success of 12 Western Asian countries’ banks.

The study examines the stability of banks by incorporating both profitability and operating efficiency along with net-interest income, which extends to the current literature’s insight.

Through research on child sexual abuse (CSA) and adult survivors, knowledge is gained. This knowledge might support decisions – whether political, professional or otherwise – that affect the lives of children who are victims of CSA and adult survivors. Additionally, this knowledge influences what the public knows about CSA and adult survivors and as a consequence, how child victims of CSA and adult survivors are treated in everyday life. Given the huge impact research can have on survivors' lives, this chapter raises the question of what aspects of CSA and survivorship are relevant for survivors from survivors' perspective and whether these aspects can be addressed by Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a research paradigm. To identify relevant aspects, survivors' artwork is analysed because art is a way to contribute to public discourses with very little regulation. For analysis, the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse is used. In this chapter, we introduce basic theories of knowledge from a constructivist perspective in a short background section and explain the aim and method of analysis. Afterwards, we present some key aspects of survivors' art on CSA and survivorship: The invasiveness of CSA, speech, the symbolic violence behind physical abuse and issues of injustice and responsibility are discussed. Additionally, the discursive relation between artists and audience is of interest to finally answer whether – and, if so, why – PAR is an appropriate research paradigm to address these aspects.

Coping and communication strategies affect how one perceives potentially stressful life events, such as infertility. Cognitive behavioral interventions (CBI) can reduce the distress related to undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of CBI on the coping and communication skills as well as perceived stress and depressive symptoms of women undergoing IVF treatment. The authors also explored the relationship between coping strategies and pregnancy rates.

The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial of CBI in 50 women undergoing IVF (NCT00685282).

The authors found that CBI was associated with reductions in active-confrontive coping among over 50 percent of participants, which was also found to be positively related to depressive symptoms. Furthermore, high meaning-based coping at baseline and high-avoidant coping at the end of IVF treatment were associated with increased pregnancy rates.

CBI can be helpful in reducing the perceived stress of women undergoing IVF; however, the adaptiveness of individual coping skills and communication skills vary. Since different coping strategies seem to be of benefit at different time points, further studies might benefit from the examination of engaging in context-dependent coping strategies.

Integrating mental health care on infertility units may assist in reducing the stress and thus quality of care in women undergoing IVF. Mental health care can be tailored to meet the individual needs of infertility patients based on their preferred coping strategies and communication style. Further research is needed to examine the cost benefit of reducing perceived stress in fertility patients.

Infertility is a social and medical problem that has vast implications on the mental health of individuals. Providing support along with practical tools for stress reduction and improved coping and communication can result in reduced stress and improved coping.

This paper examined the effect of a cognitive behavioral intervention on the coping strategies and communication skills of women undergoing IVF and can contribute to our understanding of the value of integrating mental health and medical care.