Sleep disorders can have a critical effect on health and academic performance. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence and academic impact of various sleep disorders on university students by gender. This crosssectional study was conducted between May and September 2019. The prevalence of sleep disorders was assessed using the validated SLEEP-50 Questionnaire. Overall, 637 university students participated in the study (response rate: 100%); of these, 368 (57.8%) were female and 455 (71.4%) were > 20 years old. A total of 433 students (68.0%) had grade point averages (GPAs) of 2-3, whereas 20 (3.1%) had GPAs of < 2. The most common sleep disorders were narcolepsy, restless leg syndrome, insomnia, and obstructive sleep apnoea, whereas sleepwalking and nightmares were infrequent. Sleep disorders were significantly associated with low GPA among female students. University students are at risk for sleep disorders, with such disorders associated with decreased academic performance among females.

Background: Discontinuation of hormonal contraceptives is an important contributor to unmet need of contraception. Aims: To determine the discontinuation rate and the reasons for discontinuation of hormonal contraception among Omani women. Methods: This was a 2-stage sampling, multicentre, retrospective cohort study conducted in 2018 at primary health care centres in Muscat Region, Oman. It included newly registered users of hormonal contraceptives in birth spacing clinics from January to December 2016 and the course of care over the following 12 months. A telephone interview was conducted to complement some of the missing data. The contraceptive methods available were combined oral contraceptives, progesterone only pills and injectable depot medroxyprogesterone acetate. Results: We included 404 women and 87.8% were breast-feeding. By the end of the first year, (268; 66.3%) women discontinued their contraceptive method. More than half (55.2% 148/268) of the discontinuation was attributed to adverse effects and the most prevalent was menstrual abnormality (102/268; 38.1%). Only 5.6% (15/268) discontinued contraception because they desired pregnancy. Partners and logistics of availability and access played a minimal role in discontinuation. Age and number of children did not influence the discontinuation rate. Conclusion: This study improves our knowledge about the rate of discontinuation of hormonal contraception and its related factors in Oman, which can be used for population-specific counselling. Future research should study the contraception behaviour of breast-feeding women to assess when and why they discontinue their contraceptive methods.

The goal of this study was to estimate the prevalence of polypharmacy and medication compliance among patients with T2DM at a primary care clinic in Muscat, Oman, to determine whether various sociodemographic and clinical factors were associated with polypharmacy and to assess relationships between polypharmacy, compliance, and self-related health. It is a cross-sectional study conducted between September and November 2019 and included all adult T2DM patients attending the clinic. Data were collected using a questionnaire, face-to-face interviews, and electronic medical records. A total of 202 T2DM patients were included. The majority were female (56.9%) and ≥60 years old (45.5%). Most had two or more chronic health conditions (66.3%). The prevalence of polypharmacy was 83.1%. Overall, 65% and 92% of patients reported a high level of adherence to treatment and good-to-excellent health, respectively. In conclusion, Polypharmacy was common among T2DM patients and was significantly associated with age, common comorbidities, and T2DM duration.

Objectives: Preliminary studies suggested that the high rates of stress are increasingly prevalent in students in tertiary education in the Arabian Gulf countries and that their emotional eating is often triggered by stress. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of studies on this topic and Oman is no exception. In this study, we intended to examine the prevalence of emotional eating and perceived stress in Omani college students and to clarify the relationship between their emotional eating and sociodemographic and risk factors among the population in the college students in Oman. Methods: We used Salzburg Emotional Eating Scale and Perceived Stress Scale to assess emotional eating and variations in perceived stress, respectively. We also study their sociodemographic and risk factors. Results: A total of 422 students took part in the study, with the age of 20.6 ± 1.8 (mean ± standard deviation) years. Of all students, 85.8% (n = 362) were reported to have emotional eating and 78.7% of the sample were reported to experience stress. The multivariate logistic analysis showed that body mass index (BMI) and the student's major subjects were the significant risk factors. Students who majored in science/engineering/agriculture (odds ratio [OR] = 0.926, p < 0.001) and arts/business/law were 3.1 times (OR = 3.115, p < 0.05) and 2.3 times (OR = 2.347, p < 0.05) were significantly engaged in emotional eating as compared to those majoring in medicine/nursing. Students who are underweight (BMI < 18) were 3.9 times (OR = 3.984, p < 0.05) were also significantly more to engage in emotional eating than those students who were overweight/obese (BMI 25+). Conclusion: In this study, we found that both rates of emotional eating and stress were high among college students in Oman. Contrary to international trends, underweight students (BMI < 18) were more prone to engaging in emotional eating than overweight/obese students (BMI 25+) in our study sample. This suggests that there is likely to be subcultural diversity or artifacts that are intimately tied to emotional eating. More studies on this discrepant finding are warranted.

Objectives: Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a progressive metabolic bone disease resulting from estrogen deficiency. However, due to the silent nature of the disease, there is an urgent need for a simple, early predictive marker. This study, conducted between January 2017 to December 2019, aimed to assess the potential of three factors—specifically, the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR)—as inflammatory markers of bone mineral density (BMD) loss. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted among 450 postmenopausal Omani women undergoing dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry at the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman. Participants were allocated into groups based on lumbar spine BMD t-score values. A receiver-operating characteristic curve was used to find the area under the curve (AUC). Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify independent predictors of low BMD. Results: A total of 65 (14.4%), 164 (36.4%), and 221 (49.1%) women were allocated to the control, osteopenia, and osteoporosis groups, respectively. No significant differences in PLR, MLR, and NLR values were observed based on group allocation. BMD t-score values were reversely correlated with age (P = 0.007) and PLR (P = 0.004), and positively correlated with body mass index (BMI) (P <0.001). The AUC was 0.59. However, the only independent predictors of low BMD were age (>65 years) and BMI (<25 kg/m2). Conclusion: None of the three inflammatory biomarkers studied were found to be useful prognostic indicators of bone loss. Further research is recommended to reject or support theories regarding the role of inflammatory status in the pathogenesis. Keywords: inflammatory markers, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio, Bone mineral density, osteoporosis