Background: Vaccination remains one of the most successful public health interventions in preventing severe disease and death. The roll-out of Covid-19 vaccination programmes has helped protect billions of people around the world against Covid-19. Most of these programmes have been unprecedented in terms of scale and resources, and have been implemented at times of significant humanitarian crisis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are known to cause hospitalisation, longer hospital stays, as well as higher healthcare costs and mortality. Unrecognised ADRs are anticipated throughout the medicine lifecycle as, before the medicine reaches the market, clinical trials are conducted for a short period on a limited number of people, who might underrepresent the actual population. After the medicine reaches the market, emergent information that could affect its benefit-to-risk balance is usually shared by regulatory agencies and pharmaceutical companies through medicine risk communications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Regulatory medicines risk communications aim to prevent patient harm through the dissemination of safety information to healthcare professionals (HCPs), patients, and the public. Evidence suggests that in addition to implementing the required changes, HCPs also respond to these communications through unintended and unwarranted actions and behaviours such as stopping medicine courses unnecessarily, and blanket actions spilling over to unintended patients' populations. Misunderstanding and mis-implementation of medicines risk communications could jeopardise patients' safety and clinical outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Most diabetes management involves self-management. Effective self-management of the condition improves diabetes control, reduces the risk of complications, and improves patient outcomes. Mobile apps for diabetes self-management (DSM) can enhance patients' self-management activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe devastating impact of COVID-19 on individuals and communities has accelerated the development of vaccines and the deployment of ambitious vaccination programmes to reduce the risks of infection, infection transmission and symptom severity. However, many people delay or refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19, for many complex reasons. Vaccination programmes that are tailored to address individual and communities' COVID-19 concerns can improve vaccine uptake rates and help achieve the required herd-immunity threshold.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to assess the clinical effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine-based regimens versus standard treatment in patients with the coronavirus disease admitted in 2019 to a hospital in Saudi Arabia. A comparative observational study, using routine hospital data, was carried out in a large tertiary care hospital in Al Baha, Saudi Arabia, providing care to patients with COVID-19 between April 2019 and August 2019. Patients were categorized into two groups: the Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) group, treated with HCQ in a dose of 400 mg twice daily on the first day, followed by 200 mg twice daily; the non HCQ group, treated with other antiviral or antibacterial treatments according to protocols recommended by the Ministry of Health (MOH) at the time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) in hospitals have long been shown to improve antimicrobials' use and reduce the rates of antimicrobial resistance. However, their implementation in hospitals, especially in developing countries such as Saudi Arabia, remains low. One of the main barriers to implementation is the lack of knowledge of how to implement them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntibiotics (Basel)
February 2021
Saudi hospitals and healthcare facilities are facing increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance and the emergence of new multi-drug resistant strains. This is placing an unprecedented threat to successful treatments and outcomes of patients accessing those facilities. The inappropriate use of antimicrobials is fueling this crisis, warranting urgent implementation of interventions to preserve antimicrobials and reduce resistance rates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntibiotics (Basel)
January 2021
Thailand spends $203 million on antibiotics every year, and patients can still access antimicrobials over the counter without a prescription. Community pharmacy plays a pivotal role in improving access and ensuring the appropriate use of antimicrobials. However, little is known about current practices in this setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Education, a key strategy within antimicrobial stewardship programmes (ASPs), has been mainly directed towards healthcare professionals and prescribers more than hospitalised patients.
Aim: To examine patients' knowledge and perceptions of antibiotic use and resistance, while evaluating the institutional role of patient education on antibiotic use in two Saudi Arabian hospitals, one with an implemented ASP and one without an ASP.
Method: A cross-sectional self-administered survey was developed and piloted.
Background: Although mobile health (mHealth) has the potential to transform health care by delivering better outcomes at a much lower cost than traditional health care services, little is known about mHealth adoption by hospitals.
Objective: This study aims to explore the determinants of mHealth adoption by hospitals using the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework.
Methods: We conducted an interviewer-administered survey with 87 managers in Chinese public hospitals and analyzed the data using logistic regression.
Objectives: This study explored antimicrobial stewardship programme (ASP) team members' perspectives regarding factors influencing the adoption and implementation of these programmes in Saudi hospitals.
Methods: This was a qualitative study based on face-to-face semistructured interviews with healthcare professionals involved in ASPs and activities across three Ministry of Health (MoH) hospitals in Saudi Arabia (n = 18). Interviews were also conducted with two representatives of a General Directorate of Health Affairs in a Saudi region and two representatives of the Saudi MoH (n = 4) between January-February 2017.
Antimicrobial resistance is increasing at an alarming rate in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) owing to the overuse and misuse of antimicrobials. Novel and rare multidrug-resistant strains can spread globally since the region is host to the largest expatriate population in the world as well as a pilgrimage destination for more than 4 million people annually. Adoption of antimicrobial stewardship programmes (ASPs) could improve the use of antimicrobials and reduce antimicrobial resistance in the region.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) mediated phosphorylation of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) exerts opposite effects on GR transcriptional activity and affects other posttranslational modifications within this protein. The major phosphorylation site of human GR targeted by MAPK family is the serine 226 and multiple kinase complexes phosphorylate receptor at the serine 211 residue. We hypothesize that GR posttranslational modifications are involved in the determination of the cellular fate in human lymphoblastic leukemia cells.
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