Objectives:Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) as other chronic medical conditions is commonly complicated by psychiatric symptoms. Saudi SCD patients are usually originally from Eastern and Southwestern Provinces. The main objective of our study was to evaluate the prevalence of depression among adults with SCD in southern region of Saudi Arabia. We also studied the sociodemographic profiles for these individuals.Methods:We conducted a cross-sectional study among subjects (n=78) in Armed Forces Hospital, Southern Saudi Arabia using an Arabic version of a Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression HAM-D that has received widespread use and have undergone reliability and validity testing. The data were analyzed by SPSS 22 package program. Pearson’s chi-squared test is used to examine the association between the categorical outcome variables A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results:Most of the participants were young adults (26.4± 9.2 years), single females not working who are originally from Jizan and Mahayel Aseer, Southern Saudi Arabia. The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 85.9%. When the association between depression in SCD patients and different demographic characters was tested, no significant relation between depression and any factors was discovered.Conclusion:This study confirms that depression is common in adult patients with SCD as confirmed by previous studies. On the other hand, socio-demographic factors were not significant predictors of depression in SCD patients. Further research is needed to explore the magnitude and impact of this problem at the national level.

Purpose Our objectives are to assess the public attitude toward mentally ill people and mental health services and to compare the attitudes of those who have past history of mental illness, those who have been exposed to mentally ill people, and those who have not. Materials and Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study among subjects ( n =1268) in four Saudi Arabian cities (Riyadh, Abha, Dammam, and Jizan), recruiting participants from malls and parks. All participants were administered “the knowledge and attitudes toward mental illness and mental health services scale”. Results Participants were divided into three groups; non-exposed to mental illness group ( n =687, 54.1%), exposed to mental illness group ( n =305, 24%), and having past history of mental illness group ( n =276, 21.8%). Results revealed that non-exposed group had the lowest knowledge about mental illness ( p <0.001). Exposed group had the best attitude toward mentally ill people ( p =0.002), mental health services ( p < 0.001), the lowest impact of traditional beliefs ( p <0.001), and the best help-seeking decisions ( p = 0.001). Regression models show the variables that predicted attitude toward the mentally ill were the attitude toward mental health services ( p =0.001), impact of traditional beliefs ( p =0.001), and residency ( p =0.04). The predictors of attitude toward mental health services were impact of traditional beliefs ( p <0.001), knowledge ( p <0.001), and residency ( p =0.028). And the variables that account for predicting future decisions were impact of traditional beliefs ( p <0.001), attitude toward mental health services ( p =0.001), and having past history of mental illness ( p =0.006). Conclusion This study demonstrates significant differences in attitudes toward mental illness among different groups of participants. Lesser impact of traditional beliefs and better knowledge about mental illness were the factors most associated with better attitudes toward mentally ill people and mental health services and with better help-seeking behavior.

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IntroductionDuring the current crisis of COVID 19, recent studies evident that it has a huge impact on public mental health and individuals’ behavior.ObjectivesOur study aimed to estimate the prevalence of high denial attitude towards the emerging pandemic of COVID 19 among the general population of Saudi Arabia.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey was conducted from April 3, 2020 to May 5, 2020. All participants (N= 1817) were asked to complete an online questionnaire survey that included socio-demographic and other variables, and Denial Attitude Questionnaire towards COVID-19 pandemic (DAQ-COVID-19).ResultsHigh denial attitude was prevalent among 728 (40.1 %) of the participants. It was associated with old age, being married, having low educational level, working in a non-medical professions, do not have a past history of infectious diseases, spending less than one hour following COVID-19 news, satisfied with the government procedures for COVID-19, and highly depressed and anxious respondents, where p-values were 0.001, 0.019, <0.001, 0.027, <0.001, <0.001, 0.004, 0.008, and 0.026; respectively.ConclusionsAbout two out of five participants had high denial attitude. To our knowledge, the current study is the first study that tries to evaluate a high denial attitude during the initial COVID 19 outbreaks, especially in Saudi Arabia. However, further exploration in this field is needed. We suggest conducting such a study at the end of the current pandemic or in the second wave of the outbreak

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