Informatics in Medicine Unlocked (Jan 2023)
Public awareness and use of health tools provided by the portal of the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia
Abstract
Purpose: The objective of this study was to assess the awareness and use of the health tools provided by the portal of the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Saudi Arabia to the Saudi public. Method: ology: A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the awareness and use of the health tools provided by the portal of the MOH to the Saudi public. The questionnaire was distributed to the family, friends, and co-workers through WhatsApp. Snow-ball sampling was used to encourage participants to forward the survey link to their friends and colleagues. A total of 317 people received the questionnaire and 110 respondents completed it. Results: The respondents had used the following health tools; the ideal body weight calculator (10.5%), body mass index calculator (9.9%), calorie calculator (8.0%), calculator to assess depression level (6.1%), pregnancy date calculator (4.3%), visual acuity test (4.3%), calculator to assess the best time to get pregnant (3.7%), asthma control test (2.5%), calculator to assess anxiety level (2.5%), eating disorder test (1.9%), pre-diabetic risk test (1.2%), and the sleep disorder test (1.2%). More than half of the participants (58.2%) were not aware of the health tools that the MOH provides through its website, and 64.5% of the respondents had never used these tools. 55.5% of the participants found that the services provided by the MOH through its portal meet their needs, and 91.8% of them preferred to use mobile applications to access e-services provided by the MOH. 59.1% of the respondents were satisfied and very satisfied with the e-services that the MOH provides through its website. The results indicated that there was no statistically significant association between the awareness and use of health tools and the gender, age, area of residence, educational degree, and marital status of the participants. Conclusion: The results showed that the majority of the respondents are not aware and never had used the health tools provided by the portal of the MOH of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the findings of this study could provide insight for the government to analyze the different factors that could affect the promotion, awareness, and use of these tools by the Saudi Arabian population.
