Background: Saudi Arabia has taken unprecedented and stringent preventive and precautionary measures against COVID-19 to control its spread, safeguard citizens and ensure their well-being. Public adherence to preventive measures is influenced by their knowledge and attitude toward COVID-19. This study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the Saudi public, toward COVID-19, during the pandemic. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, using data collected via an online self-reported questionnaire, from 3,388 participants. To assess the differences in mean scores, and identify factors associated with knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward COVID-19, the data were run through univariate and multivariable regression analyses, respectively. Results: The majority of the study participants were knowledgeable about COVID-19. The mean COVID-19 knowledge score was 17.96 (SD = 2.24, range: 3-22), indicating a high level of knowledge. The mean score for attitude was 28.23 (SD = 2.76, range: 6-30), indicating optimistic attitudes. The mean score for practices was 4.34 (SD = 0.87, range: 0-5), indicating good practices. However, the results showed that men have less knowledge, less optimistic attitudes, and less good practice toward COVID-19, than women. We also found that older adults are likely to have better knowledge and practices, than younger people. Conclusions: Our finding suggests that targeted health education interventions should be directed to this particular vulnerable population, who may be at increased risk of contracting COVID-19. For example, COVID-19 knowledge may increase significantly if health education programs are specifically targeted at men.

AIMTo review impacts of interventions involving self-management education, health coaching, and motivational interviewing for type 2 diabetes.METHODSA thorough review of the scientific literature on diabetes care and management was executed by a research team.RESULTSThis article summarizes important findings in regard to the validity of developing a comprehensive behavioral system as a framework for empirical investigation. The behavioral system framework consists of patients’ knowledge (K), motivation (M), attitude (A), and practice (P) as predictor variables for diabetes care outcomes (O). Care management strategies or health education programs serve as the intervention variable that directly influences K, M, A, and P and then indirectly affects the variability in patient care outcomes of patients with type 2 diabetes.CONCLUSIONThis review contributes to the understanding of the KMAP-O framework and how it can guide the care management of patients with type 2 diabetes. It will allow the tailoring of interventions to be more effective through knowledge enhancement, increased motivation, attitudinal changes, and improved preventive practice to reduce the progression of type 2 diabetes and comorbidities. Furthermore, the use of health information technology for enhancing changes in KMAP and communications is advocated in health promotion and development.

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Many studies have explored risk factors associated with Hypoglycemia (HG) and examined the variation in healthcare utilization among HG patients. However, most of these studies failed to integrate a comprehensive list of personal risk factors in their investigations. This empirical study employed the Behavioral Model (BM) of health care utilization as a framework to investigate diabetes’ hospitalizations with HG. The national inpatient sample with all non-pregnant adult patients admitted to hospitals’ emergency departments and diagnosed with HG from 2012 to 2014 was used. Personal factors were grouped as predictors of the length of stay and the total charges incurred for hospitalization. High-risk profiles of hospitalized HG patients were identified. The analysis shows the need for care factors are the most influential predictors for lengthy hospitalization. The predisposing factors have a limited influence, while enabling factors influence the variation in hospital total charges. The presence of renal disease and diabetes mellitus (DM) complications played a key role in predicting hospital utilization. Furthermore, age, socio-economic status (SES), and the geographical location of the patients were also found to be vital factors in determining the variability in utilization among HG patients. Findings provide practical applications for targeting the high-risk HG patients for interventions.

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