Awareness about rheumatic diseases: A survey from a Syrian population

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Rheumatic diseases are autoimmune inflammatory diseases that affect mainly joints, muscles, and systemic organs, leading to a public health challenge for the world. Providing society with good-quality information is important for the management of chronic diseases. We aim in our study to assess the awareness of rheumatic diseases in a sample of the Syrian population Material and Methods This web-based cross-sectional survey was conducted in Damascus, Syria, between 1 Dec.2021 and 1 Dec. 2022. All participants above the age of 18 were included. The validity and reliability of the survey were confirmed in a pilot test with 30 participants. After confirmation, participants were directed to the first part of the survey to complete questions around socio-demographic data, and awareness questions about rheumatic diseases. We ranked our participants into five levels: excellent, good, average, bad, and very bad. Results A total of 641 participants, a mean age of 28.5, 54.45% females were included in our survey. 50.39% of the participants related to the medical field, 23.09% have a family history of rheumatic diseases, and 17.94% described themselves as having a rheumatic disease. The most frequently reported rheumatic disease was rheumatoid arthritis. The respondents gave the right answer to a mean of 8.45 statements out of 20 statements. Conclusions We found that awareness of rheumatic diseases is mostly bad and very bad, thus we recommend more educational programs via multimedia or television and campaigns by healthcare professionals to increase awareness about rheumatic diseases in Syria.