Saudi Public Research Articles

Impression during Coronavirus Pandemic on Behaviour of Infectious-microbial-disease and Home-physical-tools in Saudi-public

This work was for "Impression during Coronavirus Pandemic (CVP) on Behaviour of Infectious-microbial-disease (IMD) and Home-physical-tools (HPTs) in Saudi-public (SP)". The aim was for a clarify impression during CVP on changing behaviour of IMD and HPTs in SP. That was by making a questionnaire to obtain information from people in SP. It found participating 28.5% for < 20 yr and was 71.5% for > 20 yr, 31.5% were men and 68.5% were women. While 92.5% lived in families, were HPTs differed in 83.5%, 75.5% agreed presence source Coronavirus infection (CVI) in the HPTs. As well as 11.5% individuals had CVI, where 84.5% refused to use HPTs if were suspected of carrying the CVI patient. Once 94.5% was not dealing with individuals infected with CV. Anywhere, 69.5% agreed for good treatment with the CVI patient after recovery and so 73.5% acquired skills to change the behaviour of HPTs. From the whole caution handle was 29.5%, hand washing considered 20%, permanent sterilization was 18.5%. The use of gloves and facemasks was 16.5%, not use other people's tools, it took 15.5%. That concluded from this paper the approved changes behaviour of IMD and HPTs in SP, that which had important for the decrease of CVP presence in SP and worldwide. That recommended the CVP is very risk in SP and worldwide and must take care of every behaviour in house to decrease CVI. We intend to do future research in changes behaviour in house to protect family members from CVI and save SP.

The recommended amount of physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep duration for healthy Saudis: A joint consensus statement of the Saudi Public Health Authority

BACKGROUND:The goal of the 24-h Movement Practice Guidelines for Saudi Arabia is to provide policymakers, health-care providers, researchers, sports professionals, and members of the public with recommendations on the duration of time they should spend engaged in physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep throughout all age groups.METHODS:A modified RAND appropriateness method and the “GRADE-ADOLOPMENT” approach of guideline recommendations were used by a guideline development panel to develop the present recommendations.RESULTS:The recommendations were based on the integrated needs of the following age groups: children (0–2 years), preschoolers (3–5 years), children and adolescents (6–17 years), adults (18–64 years), and older adults (≥65 years). The guidelines also include special considerations for sleep duration in the Saudi culture, such as dawn prayer and Ramadan.CONCLUSIONS:Several research gaps in physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep were identified and highlighted by the guideline development panel for potential future research.

Evaluation of Teachers’ involvement in English curriculum design and development in the Saudi Public School

Evaluation of Teachers’ involvement in English curriculum design and development in the Saudi Public School

Joint consensus statement of the Saudi Public Health Authority on the recommended amount of physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep duration for healthy Saudis: Background, methodology, and discussion.

The Saudi Public Health Authority recently prepared a Consensus Statement regarding how much time a person should spend engaged in physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep to promote optimal health across all age groups. This paper describes the background literature, methodology, and modified RAND Appropriateness Method and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE)-ADOLOPMENT approach that guided the development process. A Leadership Group and Consensus Panels were formed, and credible existing guidelines were identified. The Panel identified clear criteria to choose the best practice guidelines for the set objectives after evaluation, based on GRADE table evidence, findings table summaries, and draft recommendations. Updating of the selected practice guidelines was performed, and the Consensus Panels separately reviewed the evidence for each behavior and decided to adopt or adapt the selected practice guideline recommendations or create de novo recommendations. Data related to cultural factors that may affect the studied behaviors, such as prayer times, midday napping or “Qailulah,” and the holy month of Ramadan, were also reviewed. Two rounds of voting were conducted to reach a consensus for each behavior.

Knowledge and Awareness of Saudi Public Regarding the Outbreak and Prevention of COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia; a Questionnaire-Based Study

INTRODUCTION: The dispersion of severe COVID-19 has already occupied on pandemic extents, disturbing over 100 nations in a matter of months. A worldwide response to formulate health systems global is imperious.
 
 MATERIALS & METHODS: This is a cross sectional study conducted among the Saudi general public using an online survey. Saudis (male and female) of all ages willing to participate in this study were requested to fill up the survey. An online questionnaire was designed using Google Forms with questions related to personal and demographic information followed by COVID-10 related questions.
 
 RESULTS: A total of N=1026 subjects participated in this study and responded by completing the online survey. They were divided into groups including gender, age, education and profession type. As far as gender was concerned, 243 (23.7%) males and 783 (76.3%) females took part.
 
 CONCLUSION: Overall knowledge of Saudis regarding COVID-19 is above average.

Saudi Public Awareness Regarding Colon Cancer

Background: Colorectal cancer is the third most common malignancy in the world and in Saudi Arabia it is the second most common cancer ranking first among men and third among women. In Saudi Arabia there are no screening programs on a national level that conduct organized screening of colon cancer. Moreover, the knowledge about colon cancer is poor.
 Aim: The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge and awareness of Saudi population about colon cancer.
 Methodology: The study consisted of a survey that was developed using a survey of previous study and after validation it was converted to online form and was distributed to be filled by the public.
 Results: Public awareness regarding colon cancer is suboptimal, improving colon cancer awareness with educational interventions is needed specially for vulnerable people.
 Conclusion: Serious active measures should be taken to fill the gap in awareness of this disease for the public and health care workers.

Desired Smile and Effect of Facial Esthetics on the Confidence Level of Saudi Public: A Survey-based Study

Aim: To assess the perception of the general public towards an ideal smile, to determine an association of good facial esthetics with the high confidence level, to compare the findings based on age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Materials and methods: This study was targeted towards the Saudi general public in Riyadh city; therefore, all males and females more than 18 years of age were recruited to fill up the questionnaire. A total of 10000 Saudi general public were targeted in this study. The survey was sent using online links via social media and other sources. Results: A total of 8437 Saudis male and females filled up the online survey, which comprised of 39% (n=3307) males and 61% (n=5130) females. The participants were grouped based on their education level, which demonstrated that 3% (n=230) are primary level, 34% (n=2861) are high school level, 63%(n=5320) are university graduates. The participants were also grouped based on their socio-economic status, which demonstrated that 5% (n=428) are low status, 89% (n=7539) are moderate status and 6%(n=460) are high status. The participants were also grouped based on their dental visits, which demonstrated that 68% (n=5671) visit 0-2 times, 22% (n=1823) visit 3-5 times and10%(n=911) visit 6 times or more. Conclusion: Females were found to be more concerned about their smile, Educational levels did not affect the decision making, Higher socioeconomic status groups had more concern about their aesthetic smile, Patients with an increased number of dental visits had greater concern about their smile.

The Status of Internal Auditing in Saudi Public Universities: A Field Study

The Status of Internal Auditing in Saudi Public Universities: A Field Study

The Administrative Procedures of Total Quality Assurance in Saudi Public Universities

The Administrative Procedures of Total Quality Assurance in Saudi Public Universities

Public Service Motivation and Performance Behavior in Saudi Public Sector: The Role of Subjective Fits

Public Service Motivation and Performance Behavior in Saudi Public Sector: The Role of Subjective Fits

Exploring Teachers' Perceptions on Schools' Openness to Change in Omani & Saudi Public Schools

Exploring Teachers' Perceptions on Schools' Openness to Change in Omani & Saudi Public Schools

Developing and Measuring the Reliability and Validity of the Factors Influencing the Implementation of ICD-10-AM and Clinical Coding in Saudi Public Hospitals

BACKGROUND: The introduction of a mandatory health insurance system contributing towards the funding of national healthcare in Saudi Arabia necessitates the implementation of clinical coding and a unified health classification system, which has previously not been a feature of Saudi healthcare. As the Ministry of Health (MOH) moves to introduce ICD-10-AM, the Australian modification of the WHO ICD-10, in the Kingdom’s public hospitals, it is important to understand the factors that will influence its successful implementation.
 
 OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this article is to develop and evaluate the internal consistency reliability and validity of a questionnaire establishing the factors influencing the the implementation ICD-10-AM and clinical coding in Saudi public hospitals.
 
 METHOD: The content validity method was initiated by sending the whole draft questionnaire to a panel of experts to indicate values for each item based on a scale of content validity created by the researchers and, subsequently, using the internal consistency reliability and factorial validity methods to estimate the internal reliability of clusters of items, which were assumed to measure the same factors, grouped in this study into three factorial categories, health information (clinical documentation, classification, and coding requirements), organization (the implementation preparation in individual organizations), and national (institutional support through the national hierarchical structure). 
 
 RESULTS: The content validity identified all items of the proposed questionnaire to be valid. Based on the content validity test, several items were removed as they did not meet the proposed model and the final questionnaire was created in accord with the pilot study result. The pilot study utilized Cronbach's α and factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of Part 2 of the questionnaire and the findings indicated high internal consistency reliability and factorial validity.

The Impact of Task Technology Fit on Employee Job Performance

In today’s dynamic global business economy, the use of information technology has become an essential and pervasive technique for organizational success. In this essence, the present study extends the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology with task technology fit to see how underpinned factors impact on employee intention to adopt information technology and enhance employee job performance. In order to test the proposed research model, the respondent’s observations are required. Therefore, an administrative survey was conducted towards Saudi public organizations. A survey questionnaire was distributed among middle-level managers working in HR departments of Saudi Public organizations. In response to administrative survey 398 questionnaires were returned with a response rate of 79.6%. Among 398 questionnaires 38 were discarded due to inappropriate answers and 358 questionnaires were finally used for structural equation modelling. The inclusion criterion was that HR managers must have knowledge about online services offering by respective organizations to employees. For data analysis, structural equation modelling approach was used. Results indicate that the extended the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model has substantial power and explained 77.0% variance in employee intention to adopt the technology. The effect size analysis showed that within extended model effort expectancy was the most important factor. The predictive relevance of the model was also adequate. Finally, importance of performance matrix analysis suggested that managers and policymakers should focus on effort expectancy, task characteristics, technology characteristics and supervisor support to boost employee intention to adopt technology and employee job performance. Keywords: employee job performance, innovation valance, intention to adopt technology, moderating analysis, structural equation modelling, supervisory support.

CNN-Based Crowd Counting Through IoT: Application For Saudi Public Places

Crowd counting in specific places has recently been considered as a significant contribution in many applications in terms of security and economic values. Recently, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has considered new ways and methods to diversify sources of income, where many non-traditional establishments in several fields have been initiated and put in place. However, controlling the number of visitors and participants to events and exhibitions has always been a challenge, as it has always been considered as an important success factor to any event. Smart public places approach is one of the inevitable directions of development in Saudi Arabia, where security, comfort, and safety of crowds is to be controlled and managed using machine learning techniques, more specifically, IoT-based crowd counting techniques. Such a technology will not only help in resolving security and safety problems, but also will play a significant role in reducing waiting time for visitors, by giving indicators, projections and advices on crowded places. In this paper, a mobile-based model is proposed for counting people in high and low crowded public places in Saudi Arabia under various scene conditions with no prior knowledge. The proposed model is built based on pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) called VGG-16 with some modifications on the last layer of the CNN to increase the efficiency of the training model. In addition to the improvement of efficiency, the proposed method accepts images of arbitrary sizes/scales as inputs. The applicability of the proposed method has been evaluated by incorporating IoT architecture, where surveillance cameras to be connected to the Internet to capture live pictures of different public places. To achieve this goal, New and special Saudi people dataset as well as some other existing dataset, have been produced and used to train the network. The result shows a significant improvement to the efficiency of the DCNN over the existing counting networks.

Assessment of Saudi Public Knowledge, Attitude and Awareness towards Oral Benefits of Probiotics: A Cross- Sectional Study

Little is known about probiotic consumption or beliefs, in spite of its enhanced availability. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, awareness, and attitudes of Saudi publics towards the oral benefits of probiotics. The web-based cross-sectional survey was conducted among 600 Saudi individuals through a questionnaire which was randomly distributed through online social media. Each of them was asked to complete a questionnaire including socio-demographic data and took a probiotic knowledge test. Probiotic knowledge was significantly linked with marital status, gender and those who are working in the health field, Majority of them were females (87.1%) being more knowledgeable than males (79.9%). The highest percentages of participants who heard about beneficial bacteria were those who are in the age group 36-45 years old at 87.3%, highly educated at 87.5%, postgraduates at 89.2%, married at 88.9%, and those who are working in the health field at 94.4%. Although beneficial, lack of sufficient knowledge concerning probiotics restricted its usage among few respondents. There is a need for further education and promotion of the general public in regards to the definition, oral benefits, sources and usage of probiotics.

Key Issues for Embracing the Cloud Computing to Adopt a Digital Transformation: A study of Saudi Public Sector

The world is changing faster than ever, and digital technologies are bringing about unprecedented transformation and changing our work and lives in ways we have never anticipated. Digital transformation topic is an actively discussed these days. Internet of Things (IoT), big data, social media, cloud computing, blockchain, and augmented reality are driving organisations to the next level of digital customer engagement and IT-enabled business processes and services. Cloud computing is a key pillar of the digital transformation technology ecosystem. This paper highlights the cloud computing roles to achieve the digital transformation in Saudi Arabia, and it seeks to empirically examine the cloud computing concerns in the public sectors organisations of Saudi Arabia. An online questionnaire was launched aiming at the existing cloud computing adoption and its concerns in Saudi Arabia. Security, privacy and loss of governance are still the main obstacles for adopting cloud computing technology, although some organisations recognized their lack of knowledge in this field.

The Impact of Performance Audit on Public Administrations in Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory Study

This study aims to examine if auditors of the Saudi Supreme Audit Institution (SSAI) have exerted influence on administrators in Saudi Public Institutions in order to improve the way they manage public resources. The study also examines the impact of the public administrators’ personal factors, i.e. the experience and qualifications of administrators on the contributions made by the SSAI, in terms of facilitating the undertaking of changes in the public administrations. The result of a survey of 96 Saudi public officials shows that the SSAI can claim remarkable achievements, in terms of improving Saudi public affairs. Administrators, irrespective of their experience and qualifications, have shown positive perceptions of the process of performance audit and that they are convinced of the usefulness and the quality of the SSAI’s reports. This study reveals that the SSAI has contributed towards helping the managements of public organisations define their priorities and adopt both strategic and operational plans. It has also helped them evaluate their projects and services, identify the problems and shortcomings of these projects and services, and then provide valuable recommendations to rectify them.

Evaluation Study for Secondary Stage EFL Textbook: EFL Teachers’ Perspectives

This study aimed at evaluating EFL textbook for secondary stage in Saudi Public schools. Participants consisted of (100) male teachers and (73) female teachers teaching secondary stage students in two cities: Madinah and Dowadmi. The tool of the study designed to cover five dimensions: layout and design, the objectives of the textbook, teaching methods and activities, language skills, and evaluation. The results revealed that EFL textbook for Saudi secondary schools needs more development to be more effective in learning and teaching EFL. Clarity of the textbook objectives was one of teachers’ negative comments about the current textbook especially female teachers who disagreed that the objectives were treated effectively in the current course. The content of the textbook is not helpful in applying teaching theories and practices. In addition, the content of the textbook has no helpful tests or procedures to evaluate the achievement of the students effectively.

New EFL Teachers' Perceptions of Classroom Discipline Problems in Saudi Public Schools

Abstract This study aims at investigating problems of classroom discipline as perceived by new EFL teachers in Saudi public schools. A descriptive method was employed. A questionnaire prepared by the researcher was administered. Data analysis was conducted by descriptive statistics using SPSS, correlation coefficients, t-test, Mann-Whitney, ANOVA and Cronbach’s alpha. A total of 81 new EFL teachers comprised the sample of the study. Results of the study indicated that the most problematic misbehavior of students are copying homework from others, cheating, Speaking in Arabic, lying, and disrespecting the EFL teacher. The study recommends offering life skills programs to students, as well as conducting preventive training programs to novice teachers before the start of the academic year to address some misbehavior problems this study revealed.

Adopting and Implementing an E-Learning System for Teaching and Learning in Saudi Public K-12 Schools: The Benefits, Challenges, and Concerns

<p><em>Classera is an e-learning system that has been adopted for use in a variety of learning environments in K-12 schools in Saudi Arabia. The system can be integrated in online, blended, or traditional settings with the aim of improving teaching and learning and helping students connect with lesson content, teachers, and peers, and teachers connect with parents. The purpose of the current study is to examine the benefits, challenges and concerns surrounding the adoption and implementation of this system. An online survey was used to gather data from a sample of 70 teachers from the 12 schools in which Classera was originally piloted. The results of the study reveal high levels of teacher satisfaction with the use of Classera with benefits including easy delivering of content, facilitating student learning, and encouraging peer collaboration and teacher-parent communication. However, challenges and concerns surrounding issues such as teacher professional development, time for training, and Internet access still persist and need to be taken into consideration to ensure the successful adoption and implementation of Classera in all K-12 schools across Saudi Arabia. </em></p>