Background: Treatment burden is an emerging concept in health care literature. It can complicate the patients' condition and perhaps result in poor adherence to treatment, which is linked to worse clinical outcomes. However, until now there is no definition for treatment burden recognized by all stakeholders. This review was prepared in order to find what available definitions for treatment burden are present in the literature. Methods: A systematic review of the literature was prepared looking for definitions of treatment burden in adult patients. Articles about adults aged 18 years or older from both genders with one or more medical conditions that contained a (new) definition of treatment burden were included. The search approach consisted of conventional systematic review database searching of multiple resources including Embase, Medline, PsycINFO, and CINAHL. Two independent reviewers screened the titles and abstracts, and full papers. Results: The searches resulted in 8045 records, of which 16 articles were included. Based on quality appraisal criteria, we decided that two definitions had better evaluations than the rest of the definitions, the first one defining it as the impact of the 'work of being a patient' on functioning and well-being, the second as the actions and resources they devote to their healthcare. Conclusion:We consider the definition concentrating on actions and resources patients devote to their healthcare, including difficulty, time, and out-of-pocket costs dedicated to the healthcare tasks such as adhering to medications, dietary recommendations, and self-monitoring as the one probably comprising most domains of Treatment Burden that we have found in our search in the existing literature. However, adding even more domains to this definition and differentiating explicitly between patient's perception and caregiver's perception in the definition could in our opinion result in an improved definition. Also patients' evaluation of this definition is commendable. Contribution of the PaperAlready known about the topic:Treatment burden, already known in single chronic conditions, is an emerging concept also in the scientific literature about multimorbidity. It includes not only the burden of medication but that of all types of health care interventions and actions. Treatment Burden can complicate the patients' condition and result in poor adherence to prescribed treatments and self-care, which could be linked to worse clinical outcomes, such as more hospitalizations, higher mortality, and poor health-related quality of life.

Background: Domestic violence against Saudi women is arising recently. Also, statistics indicate that married women are the largest segment of abuse victims in Saudi society. Objectives: Estimating the prevalence of female abuse allover Saudi Arabia as well as assessing the most important factors associated with abuse. Methods: The survey was conducted during the period from January to April 2017. The study population consisted of 758Saudi Arabian females from thirteen governorates of Saudi Arabia. A self-administrated questionnaire that consists of 3 scales including demographics of females and husband's and the perception of women toward causes of abuse, frequency and types was distributed among participants. Results: The prevalence of abuse among the studied population was 32%%. The most common risk factors for being abused were addiction to drugs and alcohol. The majority of women reported minor physical abuse.About 40.5% of women asked for divorce after abuse. Being divorced, low educated, jobless, polygamy family were considerably associated with being abused. Illiterate husbands, jobless and low income were shown to be the most important male variables that were associated with abuse. Conclusion: The abuse showed a high prevalence rate (36%) indicating high ignorance of female rights as well as increasing the range of abuse allover KSA. The most significant factors associated with abuse were being working, low education of female and husband. Also, non-working husbands and poor income were related to high abuse levels.

No abstract

Objectives: To describe the incidence of pulmonary embolism (PE) in sickle cell disease (SCD) patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).

No abstract