Abstract
Objectives:Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) as other chronic medical conditions is commonly complicated by psychiatric symptoms. Saudi SCD patients are usually originally from Eastern and Southwestern Provinces. The main objective of our study was to evaluate the prevalence of depression among adults with SCD in southern region of Saudi Arabia. We also studied the sociodemographic profiles for these individuals.Methods:We conducted a cross-sectional study among subjects (n=78) in Armed Forces Hospital, Southern Saudi Arabia using an Arabic version of a Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression HAM-D that has received widespread use and have undergone reliability and validity testing. The data were analyzed by SPSS 22 package program. Pearson’s chi-squared test is used to examine the association between the categorical outcome variables A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results:Most of the participants were young adults (26.4± 9.2 years), single females not working who are originally from Jizan and Mahayel Aseer, Southern Saudi Arabia. The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 85.9%. When the association between depression in SCD patients and different demographic characters was tested, no significant relation between depression and any factors was discovered.Conclusion:This study confirms that depression is common in adult patients with SCD as confirmed by previous studies. On the other hand, socio-demographic factors were not significant predictors of depression in SCD patients. Further research is needed to explore the magnitude and impact of this problem at the national level.
Highlights
Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is one of the most important genetic diseases in the world
All the subjects were originally from southern region of Saudi Arabia, and most of them were from Jizan and Mahayel Aseer (56.4%), (33.3%) respectively; the rest (10.3%) were from Abha, Khamis Mushayt, Ahad Rufieidah, Almajardah, Bareq and Faifa
The present study aimed to assess the current prevalence of depressive symptoms among adults with sickle cell disease and to identify relevant socio-demographic factors related to depressive symptoms
Summary
Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is one of the most important genetic diseases in the world. SCD is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by production of abnormal hemoglobin S and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Millions of children have suffered from SCD worldwide.[1] In 1960s, SCD was described for the first time in Saudi Arabia.[2] There are two distinct forms of SCD in Saudi Arabia, both are referred to as the Saudi-Indian and the Benin haplotypes.3’4 Saudi SCD patients from Eastern Province have the Arab-Indian (AI) haplotype whereas patients from Southwestern Province have the most severe type: the African origin HBB (b-globin gene) haplotypes, Pak J Med Sci July - August 2018 Vol 34 No 4 www.pjms.com.pk 929 most commonly Benin.[4,5] data about prevalence of SCD in Saudi Arabia is limited, it is a comparatively common genetic disorder in our country with percentage of 145 per 1000 in Eastern region followed by 24 per 1000 in southern region.[4,5,6,7]
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