Introduction Awareness toward premarital screening test and its influence on preventing high risk marriages has become a concern to the health care system in Oman. This is due to the increased rates of inherited diseases and genetic disorders among the Omani population secondary to consanguineous marriages. Objectives This cross-sectional study aims to describe the utilization of premarital screening tests of selected university study participants as future prospective couples. Methods The study included 400 Omani study participants from different majors at a national governmental university that receives students from all over the country. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Results Out of the 400 study participants 193 [48.3%] were females and 195 [48.8%] were males, and 380 [95%] were unmarried and 19 [4.8%] were married. Personal and family history of hereditary diseases and consanguinity between parents were reported by 40 participants [10%], 158 [39.5%] and 175 [43.8%] respectively. Three hundred and sixty-one [90.3%] of the total participants were aware of the availability of premarital screening tests in Oman. A total of 357 [89.3%] thought it is necessary to do a premarital screening test and 367 [91.8%] agreed to carry out it in the future. The novel contribution of this manuscript is that our logistic regression showed that people with personal or family history of hereditary disease, and have consanguinity between parents, being a female did not show willingness to undertake the screening while those who are married, have higher GPA, and older supported it. Conclusion Usability of the freely available premarital screening is low despite the study participants awareness and willingness. Future studies should target those who have a history of genetic disease and females as we found them not willing to undertake the test in this study. We also recommend putting in place mandatory rules and regulations for premarital screening tests with better counselling strategies.

Chronic diseases constitute a significant threat to health. Worldwide, medication adherence in chronic diseases remains unsatisfactory. Understanding factors affecting adherence is essential. This study examined medication adherence by characteristics of patients with chronic diseases. This cross-sectional study included 800 patients. The Adherence to Chronic Diseases Scale was used to measure adherence. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression was used to examine factors influencing medication adherence. Low adherence was found in 19.5% of the patients, 45% had medium adherence, and 35.5% had high adherence. Logistic regression showed that retired ( OR 0.496, 95% CI [0.33–0.75]), having COPD ( OR 0.460, 95% CI [0.32–0.67]) and duration of disease ≤5 years ( OR 1.554, 95% CI [1.11–2.17]) remain independent predictors for high adherence. Mixed findings regarding the relationship between medication adherence and patients’ characteristics were noticed. Patients’ characteristics should be examined with the individual population when examining and attempting to improve medication adherence in clinical practice.

This review aims to explore the status of heart failure (HF) practice and research in Oman. Extensive search of databases (Arab World Research Source, EBSCOhost, Medline, and Google Scholar) yielded eight published literatures in the last two decades in Oman. The escalation of HF among older adults in Oman has been documented across the two decades. Ischemic heart disease continues to dominate as the cause for HF among the Omani population. Recent researchers have highlighted that acute coronary syndrome and noncompliance with medications are factors which precipitate an acute HF. One-year follow-up of HF patients in Oman has estimated their mortality rate at 25%. Our knowledge of HF is very limited by the few published research and data sets. However, the prevalence of HF is increasing, and is expected to dramatically increase with the rise in the Omani population in hypertension and diabetes. More research is needed in the area of HF on the Omani population.

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Background: Exploring public information needs and attitudes towards cancer patients might be the first step in developing an intervention that encourages public engagement in early detection and cancer prevention programmes. Aim: To explore Omani public information needs and attitudes towards cancer in Oman. Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was used. Findings: Of the 569 participants, 369 (64.9%) were female; the mean age was 30.9 (SD=9.5) years. Of the participants, 94.4% wanted to be informed if they were found to have cancer in the future. The mean total attitudes score was 40.2 (SD=4.7) out of a maximum 48. Further, being employed, preferring to be informed about cancer diagnosis and having positive attitudes towards cancer and cancer patients predicted higher information needs. Conclusions: The current paternalistic approach seems to be no longer appropriate for cancer patients in Oman, and more active patient involvement in decision-making is needed.