BackgroundCurrent advances in information and communication technology have made accessing and obtaining health-related information easier than ever before. Today, many hospital websites use a patient-centric approach to promote engagement and encourage learning for better health-related decision making. However, little is known about the current state of hospital websites in the State of Kuwait. This study aims to evaluate hospital websites in Kuwait and offer recommendations to improve patient engagement and access to health information.MethodsThis study employs a cross-sectional analytical approach to evaluate hospital websites in Kuwait in 2017. The websites of hospitals that provide in-patient services were identified through a structured search. Only active websites that were available in either English or Arabic were considered. The evaluation of the websites involved a combination of automated and expert- based evaluation methods and was performed across four dimensions: Accessibility, Usability, Presence, and Content.ResultsNine hospitals met the inclusion criteria. Most of the websites fell short in all four dimensions. None of the websites passed the accessibility guidelines. The usability of websites varied between hospitals. Overall, the majority of hospitals in Kuwait have rudimentary online presence and their websites require careful reassessment with respect to design, content, and user experience. The websites focus primarily on promoting services provided by the hospital rather than engaging and communicating with patients or providing evidence-based information.ConclusionsHealthcare organization and website developers should follow best-practices to improve their websites taking into consideration the quality, readability, objectivity, coverage and currency of the information as well as the design of their websites. Hospitals should leverage social media to gain outreach and better engagement with consumers. The websites should be offered in additional languages commonly spoken by people living in Kuwait. Efforts should be made to ensure that health information on hospital websites are evidence-based and checked by healthcare professionals.

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We present the findings from a cross-cultural study of the expectations and perceptions of individuals with autism and other intellectual disabilities (AOID) in Kuwait, Pakistan, South Korea, and the United States. Our findings exposed cultural nuances that have implications for the design of assistive technologies. We develop a framework, based on three themes; 1) lifestyle; 2) socio-technical infrastructure; and 3) monetary and informational resources within which the cultural implications and opportunities for assistive technology were explored. The three key contributions of this work are: 1) the development of a framework that outlines how culture impacts perceptions and expectations of individuals with social and intellectual disabilities; 2) a mapping of how this framework leads to implications and opportunities for assistive technology design; 3) the presentation of concrete examples of how these implications impact the design of three emerging assistive technologies.

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often engage in stereotypical behaviors. In some individuals these behaviors occur with very high frequency and can be disruptive and at times selfinjurious. We propose a system that can tacitly collect contextual data related to the individual's physiological state and their external environment, and map it to occurrences of stereotypies. A user study was conducted with children with ASD, parents, and caregivers to explore and validate this concept. A prototype of the system, developed through participatory design, was used in the study as a probe to elicit the information needs of these stakeholders, and provide a better understanding of the nuances involved in supporting those needs. Here we present the findings of this study, and four design recommendations; promoting ecological integration, addressing privacy concerns, supporting inference, and enabling customization.

Adolescents and young adults with high functioning autism spectrum disorders (HF ASD) have very different needs and abilities. Deficits in social skills and executive function, however, are generally considered defining characteristics of HFASD. Deficits in socialization often interfere with these individual's educational experience and quality of life, and explicit instruction is required to help them acquire age appropriate social skills. We describe an approach to social skills training for adolescents and young adults with HFASD. Our design allows the user to role-play through social scenarios-such as going to the movie theatre-in a way that we believe may lead toward generalization. We also present the findings of an exploratory study in which 8 young adults with HFASD interacted with a prototype system. These findings showed that participants with HFASD respond favorably to the software, and that, in the future it will be important to integrate all aspects of a complete interventions into the software.