Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases, usually appears during childhood or adolescence; however, it can also develop in adults. The objective of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and awareness about diabetes among teaching stuff in Taif province of Saudi Arabia. A cross sectional study, using a structured pre-tested questionnaire, was conducted in Taif. Our study involved 50.5% males and 49.5% were females. The age of participants ranged from less than 30 years old to more than 50 years old. Our results showed that he majority of teaching staff in our sample study are aware of diabetes and how to deal in case of low blood glucose level. However, the knowledge of causes, symptoms, risk factors, complications of diabetes and signs of low blood glucose level was not as high as expected. Therefore, training is required for the teaching stuff as more than half of our sample study had taught a diabetic child.

This study was conducted to find out if there is a relationship between living in high altitude cities like "Taif" and children's growth at this city. Subjects and MethodsA total of 277 children from Taif city were screened during July 2017. This included 133 males (48%) and 144 females (52%).For those children, wet took the measurements of weight to the nearest 0.25 kg and height to the nearest 0.25 cm. Two body scales and 2-meter sticks were used for this purpose. We needed to measure the height of the parents to rule out the genetic predisposition for the short stature.Data was collected using a questionnaire form during a face to face interview and was entered into the database using a computer.Optimal child growth is a crucial goal that should be pursued to guarantee a healthy life for the individuals in a population with a good quality of life. For this purpose, any risk factors that may disturb or affect the normal growth pattern should be recognized. Living at a high altitude is suggested to be one of these factors. In this study, we aimed to explore if there is a relationship between living in high altitude cities like "Taif' and children's growth.Our population was randomly selected from children whose ages range from 5 to 18 years old and who live in "Taif" city. A total of 277 children were included in this study. Information about their anthropometric measurements were collected and compared to the Saudi national growth standard.Results showed that both weight and height of boys were significantly higher than the Saudi national growth standard. And for girls, the weight was significantly higher while the height did not differ significantly from the Saudi national growth standard. These findings do not support the hypothesis that living in high altitude cities like "Taif" can affect child's growth negatively in terms of height and weight.

No abstract