ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND/AIM: Type 2 diabetic patients (T2DM) have lower quality of life (QoL) compared to the general population. This study was conducted to determine QoL of T2DM patients and analyze factors that affect patients' QoL. METHODS: We conducted this cross-sectional study in January to February of 2019 at several primary care health centers (PCHC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. All adult T2DM patients were invited to participate in the study. We used the EQ-5D-3L and EQ VAS tools to determine the patients' health state and their self-rated overall health. RESULTS: A total of 274 T2DM patients were surveyed, 149 (54.4%) were males. The mean age was 59.7 ± 10.4 years. Of the five EQ-5D-5L domains, self-care had the highest proportion that reported no problem (n = 183, 66.8%). The mobility domain had the highest proportion of reported severe problems (n = 37, 13.5%) and extreme problems (n = 7, 2.6%). Nineteen (6.9%) patients reported with a full state of health. The mean EQVAS was 65.9 ± 22.1, with only 24.1% reported as between 81-100%. Females, patients above 75 years old, those who are in the low socioeconomic income, unemployed, widow had lower EQ VAS. CONCLUSION: Males, with higher socioeconomic status, employed, married and younger patients experience better QoL compared to their counterparts. The overall health related QoL among our diabetic patients is low. These findings suggest improvement of health-related QoL, and more efforts should be invested in patient education particularly among patients who are in the low socioeconomic status, the elderly, females and the unemployed.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: This study assessed "model of care" (MoC) knowledge among Riyadh First Health Cluster (C1) staff (health workers and admin) at Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH). METHODS: This study is cross-sectional, observational, and analytic. Raw data were collected from the data warehouse of the Vision Realization Office (VRO) at the MOH. It was then entered into SPSS, Version 24, and 3,696 individuals were analyzed. Descriptive statistics were presented as numbers and percentages, and a Chi-square test was used to test for associations. The study was approved by the hospital research committee and the Institutional Review Board (HlRI-15-Dec l9-01). RESULTS: The staff who knew of the transformation occurring in the healthcare sector were 98.2% male and 93.6% female (P < .001). The staff having more than 20 years of experience represented the highest level of understanding (44.4%). In contrast, a team with 0-1 years of experience had the lowest level of understanding (13.6%) (P < .001). However, the staff with 0-1 years of experience was associated with the highest agreement percentages (93.4%, 92.2%) while the staff with more than 20 years of experience was associated with a lower agreement of percentages (88.2%, 79.1%) (P < .001). Finally, we found pharmacists and primary healthcare centers to generally have the highest knowledge percentages across the studied dimensions (P < .001). CONCLUSION: The C1 staff who participated in this study had good knowledge of Saudi Arabia's MoC. We recommend future elaborating research about the Saudi MoC to compare in detail with the staff in the other sectors and reach an international benchmark.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND/AIM: Hypertension (HBP) is a chronic disease that has become a public health problem, which has been attributed to numerous risk factors. However, despite numerous HBP management and behavioral treatment guidelines, HBP is poorly controlled among patients due to insufficient care. We conducted this study to identify the prevalence of self-management behaviors and to explore factors affecting self-management behaviors for controlling HBP among hypertensive patients. METHODS: We conducted a survey using the Hypertension Self-Care Profile (HBP-SCP) and the Hill-Bone Adherence Scale among diagnosed HBP patients attending the Family Medicine clinics of King Saud Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in January 2019. All patients of Saudi nationality aged 18 years and above were included in the study. RESULTS: A total of 187 patients responded to the survey, 95 (50.8%) males and 92 (49.2%) females. Only 93 patients (49.7%) monitor their BP at home, and 68 (36.4%) always measure their BP. Ninety-one patients (48.7%) said that measuring their BP is not important. The most common reason for not taking the anti-HBP medications is they forget to take the medications in 87 (46.5%) of patients. Seventy-two patients (38.5%) did not restrict salt intake, and 51 patients (27.3%) had no time for exercise. More than half of the patients (51.3%) were not motivated to regularly exercise and 56.7% were motivated to limit salt-intake. Confidence to exercise, check BP at home, and eat low-salt foods were also low at 52.4-53.5%. Significant factors including gender, age, BMI, duration of HBP, and presence of cardiac disease were found to be related toward behavior, motivation, and confidence to self-care. CONCLUSION: Compliance, behavior, motivation, and self-care among hypertensive patients visiting the primary care clinics in our representative population are low. Various factors were found to be related to poor behavior, poor motivation, and less confidence to do home BP monitoring, to exercise more, restrict salt intake, and value the control of HBP. There is a need for health practitioners to assess self-care activities and blood pressure control, and educate patients the importance of HBP monitoring and teaching practical techniques to boost their confidence and motivation to achieve a better behavior, self-care, and compliance to management.
