Saudi Patients and Health Care Providers: Divergent Perceptions of Illnesses and Their Symptoms

Abstract

This cross-sectional survey study analyses the degree of concordance between Saudi patients and their nurses and physicians in four areas: (1) perceived causation of diseases and drivers of cure, (2) symptom ranking and perception, (3) views on social habits and traditional medicine, and (4) assessment of health care providers' empathy. The doctors and nurses were asked to predict their patients' responses to the survey. Significant divergence was found between the patients' responses and the health care providers' predictions. Cultural and background differences between the two groups, as well as a large educational gap, might account for this disparity. Such discordance could conceivably lead to wrong diagnoses being made, due to the different levels of importance that patients and doctors accord to symptoms.

Mental Health Care in Saudi Arabia: Past, Present and Future

“…Second, patients often believe that physical or psychiatric symptoms have supernatural causes, as emphasized by Dubovsky, and therefore seek help from spiritual or traditional healers-not allopathic physicians. Consider the results of a survey at a public hospital in Riyadh that examined attitudes and beliefs of hemodialysis patients [39]. Ninety-eight patients (58% female, mean age 43) were asked what they thought caused their kidney disease and the most important factor responsible for their recovery.…”