Aim: To determine the effect of habits, traditions, and beliefs on seizure diagnosis and provide first aid in Taif city, KSA. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 297 participants from Taif, KSA. An Arabic self-administrated electronic questionnaire was used that included different parts to collect the information from participants; characters, previous history of seizures, habits, beliefs and traditions about the seizures and first aid. Results: Most of the participants had an average level of knowledge by 20.88, 47.14 and 31.99% of the participants had a poor, average and good level of knowledge about seizures and epilepsy. 70.0% of our participants knew that seizure is a symptom associated with many diseases; 40.7% knew that hypoglycemia can cause a seizure, while 37 and 32.3% did not know seizure treatment and whether Hijama and Cupping therapy were enough to treat seizure; 26.9 and 35.4% of the participants responded by neither putting something hard on the patient's mouth nor opening the patient's mouth by force to protect him from swallowing his tongue, respectively. Only 17.2% agreed on not calling the ambulance for all seizure cases. Participants aged between 20 and 29 and single had a significant higher percent of good knowledge with no significant association between gender, income and educational level and the participant's level of knowledge. Conclusion: There is a lack of knowledge and misconceptions about aspects related to seizures among the studied participants. It is recommended to raise awareness and correct false misconceptions about providing first aid to seizure patients.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the health-care system worldwide, and physicians face challenges in clinical practice, especially in managing cancer patients. This study aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on physicians managing breast cancer patients in Saudi Arabia.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from May to October 2020 among physicians practicing in Saudi Arabia, using an online-based survey. The questionnaire included items on physicians’ sociodemographic, barriers faced with breast cancer patients, concerns about and satisfaction with breast cancer patients’ management, and treatment protocols they follow.Results: A total of 317 physicians participated in this study. Most of them faced difficulties in their work with breast cancer patients during this pandemic, and 77.3% reported that they diagnosed at least one breast cancer case. Many patients missed chemotherapy sessions, and half of the centres indicated that more than 10% of their patients missed at least one session. 83% of the physicians were satisfied with the way they managed breast cancer patients, and 73% follow a specific protocol in managing breast cancer patients.Conclusions: The study’s findings show that the active COVID-19 pandemic led to a more stressful situation among physicians, which has affected management of breast cancer patients. COVID-19 is reshaping the delivery of not only breast cancer care but also general oncology practice. Currently, due to the availability of effective vaccination and more understanding of COVID-19, we believe that breast cancer operations should be performed on their scheduled date.

Objectives: To assess factors affecting Saudi population preference in losing weight either by bariatric surgeries or by conservative strategies. Methods: A cross sectional study was done using a self-administered questionnaire distributed online. Study was done on 518 participants (group 1) who did not prefer to undergo bariatric surgery and preferred conservative strategies in weight reduction and group 2 (84 participants) who preferred to undergo bariatric surgery. Results: Participants in group 1 and group 2 represented 86% and 14% of the sample. Group II had a significant higher percent of obese and per-obese individuals, who usually eat basic meals every day, who usually have soft drinks as beverages, who eat fast food for more than 2 times weekly, who had more than 6 attempts to lose weight in the last 5 years and who thought that their families would support their efforts in improving their food habits. Group II had a statistically significant higher percent of those who consider bariatric surgery as an effective tool for weight loss, who believed that they would lose more weight with bariatric surgery, and who believe that surgery will cause a drastic change in their lifestyle. Group 1 had a significant higher percent of those who eat fruit and vegetables every day, who reported always practicing physical activity during the entire year. Conclusion: Factors affecting the preference of weight loss were eating habits, physical activity, and attempt of dieting. An efficient health education programs about bariatric surgeries is needed to correct misconceptions regarding the surgery.

This study aimed to assess the relationship between loneliness and hypothyroidism in patients with hypothyroidism and to determine predictors of loneliness. Materials and methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted on hypothyroid patients attending the endocrine clinics at Alhada Military Hospital and Prince Mansour Military Hospital, Taif, Saudi Arabia between the period of December 2020 and May 2021. Patients with more than 18 years of hypothyroidism were included and those with other thyroid diseases were excluded as well as those with other comorbidities and psychiatric disorders and those who were living alone. Data were collected using an online pre-structured questionnaire. ResultsThe study included 231 hypothyroid patients with a mean age of 43.34 ± 12.9 years, and 90.9% were females. The majority (96.5%) were taking levothyroxine, and 27.3% were practicing physical activity. Only 2.2% of the participants had a high degree of loneliness, whereas 47.2%, 34.6%, and 16% had low, moderate, and moderately high degrees of loneliness, respectively. DiscussionIn this study, 2.2% of sampled hypothyroid patients had high (2.2%) or moderately high degrees of loneliness feelings (16%). Duration of hypothyroidism was a significant predictor for high loneliness score.