Background Nowadays, patients have access to all types of health information on the internet, influencing their decision-making process. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region consists of 22 countries with an estimated population of around 600 million. Breast cancer is the highest diagnosed cancer in this region. Websites are commonly the go-to cancer information sources. A large population of the MENA region is only fluent in the Arabic language, thus access to Arabic websites is in more demand. However, little is known about breast cancer websites that cater to an Arabic-speaking audience. This study aims at evaluating Arabic breast cancer websites and offering recommendations to improve engagement and access to health information. Methods This study employed a cross-sectional analysis approach. Google trends was used to reveal the top searched topics across the MENA region, which in turn were used as search terms to identify the websites. To be included, a website had to be active, available in Arabic, and contain breast cancer information. The evaluation was based on a combination of automated and expert-based evaluation methods through five dimensions: Availability, Accessibility, Readability, Quality, and Popularity. Results Overall most of the websites performed poorly in the five dimensions and require careful reassessment concerning design, content, and readability levels; Only one website performed well in all dimensions, except for readability. Generally, the readability scores indicated that the websites were above the recommended level of reading. None of the websites passed the automated accessibility tests. The expert evaluation using the “Health on the Net” checklist showed good results for most websites. Conclusions Breast cancer rates are rising in the MENA region, therefore having comprehensive, accurate, trustworthy, and easy-to-understand health information in their native language is a must. The results from this study show a need for improving the accessibility to breast cancer information websites available to Arabic speakers. The search was limited to three search engines yielding 10 websites and only one tool was used per dimension. Future work is needed to overcome these limitations. Collaboration between multiple stakeholders is necessary to develop websites that contain easy-to-read and understand high-quality information.

Today, adults are use social media to seek health information. Evidence suggests that hospitals using Instagram reported better patient engagement and in turn increased profit and reputation. Yet, little is known about how public and private hospitals are leveraging Instagram. This study aims to analyze the presence of hospitals on Instagram using Kuwait as a case study. Hospitals were identified using the Ministry of Health’s website and Instagram. Posts collected from 7 odd months were analyzed using the Constant Comparison method. A total of 3,439 posts were distributed across six categories: Health advice & education, operations & services, current events, hospital community, seasonal occasions, and trivia. Public and private hospitals differed in their activity on Instagram in terms of health topics covered, post categories, and interactions. Hospitals should improve their presence on Instagram to promote healthy lifestyles, augment public health campaigns, and be a source of reliable and accessible health information online.

This research proposes, designs, and implements a new telehealth system. It is a Speech Clinic System (SCS) for children with communication disorders. It provides an online automated alternate to the traditional manual treatment processes for children with communication disorder. The proposed SCS provides an easy way for parents to be in touch with the speech-language pathologist, check their child progress, make an appointment, follow guidelines, and choose therapy exercises. The structure of the system has been designed to automate parts of the treatment process. To achieve the targeted system, in addition to investigating the latest studies in this area, the needed data was collected through interviews and searching about the treatment process of children with communication disorder. The system, as a special case, has been oriented for the Arabic speaking communities (specially state of Kuwait) to improve its healthcare sector. However, it can be easily oriented to fulfill the needs of other countries with some variation of language and other local requirements.

This research proposes, designs, and implements a new telehealth system. It is a Speech Clinic System (SCS) for children with communication disorders. It provides an online automated alternate to the traditional manual treatment processes for children with communication disorder. The proposed SCS provides an easy way for parents to be in touch with the speech-language pathologist, check their child progress, make an appointment, follow guidelines, and choose therapy exercises. The structure of the system has been designed to automate parts of the treatment process. To achieve the targeted system, in addition to investigating the latest studies in this area, the needed data was collected through interviews and searching about the treatment process of children with communication disorder. The system, as a special case, has been oriented for the Arabic speaking communities (specially state of Kuwait) to improve its healthcare sector. However, it can be easily oriented to fulfill the needs of other countries with some variation of language and other local requirements.