Assessing Knowledge, Awareness, and Attitudes Towards Personalised, Genomic, and Pharmacogenomics Medicine in Health Students at Umm Al-Qura University: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: personalised medicine is a medical concept that intends to provide individuals with individualized approach preventative and treatment techniques. It is substantially relies on genetic and clinical examination; this aspect of medicine has significantly progressed over the last few decades.
 Aims: our study surveyed health students from different health-related colleges in the Makkah region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). We compared student knowledge, awareness and attitudes toward personalised, genomic, and pharmacogenomic medicine to address a knowledge gap in the literature.
 Methodology: an online survey-based study was carried out on health students in different health colleges at Umm Al-Qura University between March 2021 and September 2021.
 Results: the number of participants in the current study was 370. Their mean age was 21.05± 1.72 years. Altogether, 68.1% of the participants were male, and 31.9% were female. The majority were second-year students, while intern students were the least represented. The College of Medicine had the largest representation of students. The majority of the students were single. Moreover, there was a correlation found between participants’ level of awareness and their gender and college (p, value 0.003, 0.050, respectively). Furthermore, a significant correlation was found regarding students’ interest in undertaking a genetic test (p-value, 0.045).
 Conclusion: according to the findings of the current study, health care professionals have limited awareness about personalised, genomic, and pharmacogenomics medicine. Furthermore, participants’ gender, and college were found to have a significant correlation with their level of awareness, compared with the other demographic categories.