Mental health, resilience, and culturally congruent care among Muslim and Arab American women in the United States: a scoping review
Year: 2026
Type: review
Study design: Systematic Review
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.
Author: Lina Mohammad
Institution: West Coast University
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,077
OpenAlex ID: W7222485924