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Background: Hypertension is one of the most prevalent long-term diseases seen in many countries, including Palestine. Patients with poorly controlled blood pressure are more likely to develop several complications. Therefore; it is imperative to control their blood pressure by improving their adherence to the treatment regimen. Aim: The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of using a mobile phone app on the level of adherence to treatment regimens among hypertensive patients in the Gaza Strip. Methods and results: This study used an experimental design with a pre and post-intervention assessment. Using the Hill–Bone compliance to high blood pressure therapy scale, 191 participants completed the study: 94 in the control group and 97 in the intervention group. The intervention group used a phone app which reminds participants to take their medication, reminding them about their follow-up appointments and sending educational information about hypertension management. After 3 months of intervention, the level of adherence to treatment was reassessed. Results showed that participants in both groups showed a significant improvement in adherence levels, with higher improvements in the intervention group in the total score as well as all three domain scores: adherence to medication, diet and keeping appointments. Conclusion: The use of a mobile phone app resulted in improvements in adherence to hypertension treatment. Thus, this study confirms the potential effectiveness of mobile technology in improving treatment adherence in hypertension and an opportunity to reduce cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. However, wider adoption has to be accompanied by ongoing evaluation and integration in public health systems.

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The findings showed that health care providers suffered from severe posttraumatic symptoms after exposure to prolonged war stress. This level of trauma among health care providers warrants intervention programs to reduce stress and trauma among Gaza health care providers after the war.

ObjectivesThis study examined the attitudes of nurses and doctors to key patient safety concepts, evaluated differences and similarities between professional groups and assessed positive and negative attitudes to identify target areas for future training.SettingFour major governmental hospitals in the Gaza-Strip.ParticipantsA convenience sample of 424 nurses and 150 physicians working for at least 6 months in the study hospitals.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe primary outcome measures were mean scores with SD as measured for individual items and nine main patient safety domains assessed by the Attitudes to Patient Safety Questionnaire. Secondary outcome measures were the proportions of doctors and nurses, that gave a positive response to each item, represented as percentage of each group.ResultsNurses and doctors held moderately positive attitudes towards patient safety with five out of nine domain scores >3.5 of 5. Doctors showed slightly more positive attitudes than nurses, despite a smaller proportion of doctors having received patient safety training with 37.5% compared with 41.9% of nurses. Both professions displayed their most positive patient safety attitudes in the same domains (‘team functioning’ and ‘working hours as a cause for error’), as well as their two most negative attitudes (‘importance of patient safety in the curriculum’ and ‘professional incompetence as a cause of error’), demonstrating significant deficits in understanding medical errors. A specific challenge will be the negative attitudes of both professions towards patient safety training for wider dissemination of this content in the postgraduate curriculum.ConclusionPatient safety attitudes were moderately positive in both professional groups. Target of future patient safety training should be enhancing the understanding of error in medicine. Any training has to be motivating and relevant for clinicians, demonstrating its importance in ongoing professional learning.