Factors That Influence the Quality of Dementia Care in Saudi Arabia

The next session at the ACSPRI 2024 conference is on mixed methods research, and starts with Sara Yaghmour, whose focus is on dementia care. Her focus is especially on Saudi Arabia, where – as in much of the developing world – there is still a lack of awareness, policy, and resources in this field, even though there is an unusual high level of dementia cases in Saudi Arabia.

Sara’s project explores nurses’ knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of dementia; it combines a quantitative survey of nurses, a qualitative diary and interview study, and an interpretive process combining these components. This covered six hospitals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second largest city. The focus here was on English-speaking nurses with at least one year of work experience in departments admitting dementia patients.

Some 710 participants completed the survey, and the study worked with 18 of these to complete the diary and interview process. The results from both components of the study were integrated for analysis. Most nurses had only limited access to evidence bases (36%), the Internet (28%), reading groups (37%), or computers (5%) at work; 17% had a family member with dementia, and 42% provided professional care for dementia. Only 12% had received specific dementia education.(There are more stats here; I’m covering only some of the highlights.)

Key findings are a positive association between knowledge and attitudes, and work environment, cultural, and behavioural influences on knowledge and attitudes. A lack of knowledge was associated with a lack of confidence in dementia care provision; nurses were willing to learn about dementia care, but resources for doing so were not always available; and there were three over major findings which Sara is skipping over in the interests of time.

Emotional and cultural factors, cultural challenges and stigma, workforce and organisational barriers, and gaps in knowledge and training all exacerbate barriers to better dementia care in Saudi Arabia.