Health informatics can be broadly described as a multidisciplinary field seeking to enhance the utilizations of information and communication technology in manipulating medical data and knowledge in order to increase the quality and safety of the delivery of medical services by healthcare professionals. The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, namely Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, the Unit...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the level of empathy among medical students in Kuwait University Medical School and its association with sociodemographic factors, stress levels and personality. SUBJECTS AND METHODS A cross-sectional survey of 264 medical students was conducted in the Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University. Empathy levels were measured using the Jefferson Scale, personality was assesse...

OBJECTIVE We build classification models and risk assessment tools for diabetes, hypertension and comorbidity using machine-learning algorithms on data from Kuwait. We model the increased proneness in diabetic patients to develop hypertension and vice versa. We ascertain the importance of ethnicity (and natives vs expatriate migrants) and of using regional data in risk assessment. DESIGN Retr...

OBJECTIVE To report on stroke subtypes, associated risk factors and outcome in Kuwait. METHODS The records of 62 patients (30 male, 32 female) admitted with diagnosis of stroke to Kuwait Oil Company Hospital, Kuwait, a tertiary care hospital, during a 5-year period (1995-1999), were retrospectively reviewed. RESULTS Small artery infarction was the most common subtype and occurred in 37 subj...

Objective: To assess the compliance with hand hygiene guidelines among nursing staff in secondary care hospitals in Kuwait. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted through direct observation using the Lewisham observation tool and self-administered questionnaire in six major public secondary care hospitals in Kuwait. Only patient care activities that are described as ‘dirty ...

The isolation and characterization of two bacterial species, Streptococcus agalactiae and Lactococcus garvieae, previously unreported in wild marine mammals are described from a freshly dead bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, from Kuwait Bay, Kuwait, in September 2001. Conventional and rapid identification systems were used to determine that isolates from muscle and kidney were S. agalacti...

BACKGROUND Accidents are a preventable cause of death. Unfortunately it accounts for a large number of deaths in many societies. In Kuwait, road traffic accidents (RTA) is the leading cause of death in young people. The study investigated the patterns of accidental deaths in Kuwait, one of the Gulf States which incorporates a wide variety of multi-ethnic communities. METHODS The study was ret...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the direct costs of treating asthma in Kuwait. MATERIALS AND METHODS Population figures were obtained from the 2005 census and projected to 2008. Treatment profiles were obtained from the Asthma Insights and Reality for the Gulf and Near East (AIRGNE) study. Asthma prevalence and unit cost estimates were based on results from a Delphi technique. These estimates were appl...

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), coronary heart disease (CHD) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are major healthcare problems in Kuwait. The present study was designed to determine the prevalence of MetS, and to estimate the 10-year risk for developing T2DM and CHD among the general population in Kuwait. METHODS A descriptive, cross-sectional survey was undertaken in 1800 individuals w...

Péter Lajkó,1 Enrico Carlon,2 Heiko Rieger,3 and Ferenc Iglói4,5 1Department of Physics, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait 2Interdisciplinary Research Institute c/o IEMN, Cité Scientifique Boîte Postale 60069, F-59652 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France 3Theoretische Physik, Universität des Saarlandes, D-66041 Saarbrücken, Germany 4Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics...