SocioCultural and Religious Impacts Upon Covid-19 Pandemic Physical Distancing Public Practices.

INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 is the first pandemic event that has happened in Oman which requires all residents and nationals to practice quarantine and physical distancing. METHODS: This cross-sectional study targeted the population of Oman and was carried out during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic from 11th August 2020 to 7th September 2020. This study utilized the online survey most appropriately designed for the population. The survey was distributed to the public through social media and text messages. The survey was translated into the four main spoken languages in Oman, which are Arabic, English, Swahili, and Hindi. RESULTS: A total of 943 residents responded to the online survey. The majority of respondents reported that they are ready/ready to a great extent to practice physical distancing (61.9%) during the pandemic compared to 34.9% not sure/ready to some extent and 3.2% not ready at all for physical distancing. It was found that financial factors, religious and cultural-norms had the strongest negative-impact to maintain physical distancing. While level of responsibility, governmental legislations, and fear of getting or transmitting the infection had the strongest positive impact to maintain physical distancing. Males reported a greater financial and religious negative impact of physical distancing with p-values of 0.002 and 0.001, respectively. Females reported a greater positive impact of family and friend's support and legislation with p-values of 0.046 and 0.008, respectively. CONCLUSION: Religious practices mainly negatively affected the male gender during this pandemic which hindered the adherence to physical distancing. This could be due to culture and norms that derive from human behavior within communities and may affect the safety measures during an outbreak or pandemic. Hence, even with availability of vaccinations, campaigns on public health and the utilization of faith leaders should be the national practice to continue emphasizing compassionate attitudes towards physical distancing.

Granulomatous Periorificial Dermatitis in an Adult: A case report with review of literature.

Granulomatous periorificial dermatitis (GPD) is a benign, self-limiting eruption that is considered a clinical variant of periorificial dermatitis, also known as perioral dermatitis. It presents primarily in prepubertal children as monomorphic scaly papules over perioral, paranasal and periorbital areas of the face with rare occurrence in adults. We report a 36-year-old Omani male patient who presented to the Dermatology Clinic at Bahla Polyclinic, Bahla, Oman, in 2018 with a papular eruption over his face for the previous six months. Based on clinical and histopathological findings the patient was diagnosed with GPD with sarcoid-like histology. He was treated effectively with oral doxycycline and topical metronidazole. This report provides a review of the literature on GPD and summarises all reported cases in adults to date.

Immune-mediated Skin Disorders and their Oral Manifestations in the Omani Population: A Hospital-based Study.

OBJECTIVES: We sought to determine the prevalence of immune-mediated skin disorders (IMDs), their oral manifestations, and the related comorbidity among Omani patients with IMDs attending the outpatient Department of Dermatology and Dental Clinic at Al Nahdha Hospital, Muscat. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of 236 newly-diagnosed patients with IMDs who attended the outpatient clinic between September 2014 and September 2017. Data, such as age, sex, investigations, diagnosis, comorbidity, and associated oral manifestations of the affected individuals, were collected from the hospital health information system. RESULTS: Of the 236 diagnosed cases of IMD, lichen planus substantially comprised over half of the total cases (59.7%). This was followed by relatively fewer cases of discoid lupus erythematosus (11.0%), systemic lupus erythematosus (10.2%), and erythema multiforme (8.1%). Pemphigus vulgaris and bullous pemphigus comprised only 3.0% and 4.2% of the total studied cases, respectively. The other less common disorders found in our study were toxic epidermal necrolysis (1.7%), pemphigus foliaceus (1.3%), and gestational pemphigoid (0.8%). Oral mucosal involvement was seen more commonly with lichen planus (78.7%), pemphigus vulgaris (71.4%), and erythema multiforme (75.0%), while systemic lupus erythematosus and discoid lupus erythematosus were shown to appear with more comorbidities compared to the other skin disorders studied. CONCLUSIONS: Several IMDs have considerable oral involvement. These oral manifestations of the diseases may be overlooked by other specialists leading to a delay in the diagnosis and its management. In order to circumvent this delay, the analysis and evaluation of a disease need to be done by a team comprising of a dental surgeon, dermatologist, and an oral medicine specialist.