The Pattern of Referrals to Lifestyle Clinics in PHCs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Introduction: lifestyle medicine is the cornerstone of a healthy population for the prevention of disease and promotion of health attitudes and practices among community members. Description of referred population to lifestyle medicine clinic is mandatory for health care planning and allocation of resources. This study aims to describe the pattern of the referred population to the lifestyle clinic in primary health care centers in Riyadh Saudi Arabia.Methods: cross-sectional study for registry of patients referred to Lifestyle clinic, data collection for January 2023 to October 2023 were collected. Sociodemographic characteristics of the referred patients to the Lifestyle clinic were produced.Results: during the study duration from January 2023 to October 2023, a total of 1228 patients were referred to the lifestyle clinic, 598 (48.7%) were females and 630 (51.3%) were males. The age of patients referred to the lifestyle clinic ranged from 18 to 74 years, with a mean age of 42.28 years and an SD of 14.8 years old.Conclusion and recommendations: Lifestyle clinic referrals are from different age groups and from both genders. The lifestyle clinic is receiving a variety of patients from different clinics such general primary health care clinics and family medicine. There is a more detailed larger studies both quantitative and qualitative studies to describe the pattern of patients and their general needs to better planning of health care resources and improvement of health care services.