This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study with a sample size of 213
participants. Data were gathered between April 2022 and August 2022. The
questionnaire used for data collection was straightforward,
understandable, and indicative of the study’s objectives. Before the
data were collected, all of the patients received a briefing about the
study’s objectives. The University of…..
institutional review board granted ethical approval in November 2021
(Ref: REC-HSD-99-2021).
Gout patients with blood uric acid levels >6 mg/dl and who
resided in Saudi Arabia met the study’s inclusion criteria. Patients
with chronic illnesses other than gout were excluded.
The questionnaire, which was written in Arabic and pre-tested in a
previous pilot study, was organized into several sections.
The questionnaire’s Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.72 indicated its
reliability. The questionnaire and its sections were based on previous
research.9,10 The first section was where patients
indicated their consent and willingness to take part in the study. The
second section captured the following demographic details: gender, age,
and marital status. The third section collected clinical data from gout
patients. Weight, uric acid levels, prior gout episodes, number of
affected joints, management, and medication were all taken into
consideration. Uric acid levels were extracted from the patients’
diagnostic laboratory reports. The fourth section evaluated the
patients’ general understanding, beliefs, and practices related to gout.
Overall, there was a low rate of missing data (<3.8%). We
excluded missing values from the analysis. Cronbach’s alpha was
calculated to assess the reliability of the data regarding the gout
patients’ perspectives on their disease and treatments in Saudi Arabia.
Initial analyses were performed using descriptive statistics. The
continuous variables, like height, weight, and year, were analyzed as
categorical variables for easy comparisons, wherein category-specific
proportions were calculated. We used the chi-square test or Fisher’s
exact test for discrete variables. Specifically, we identified patients
with ”uncontrolled gout,” which we defined as ”those patients reporting
two or more chronic symptoms that required medical care,” and controlled
gout—”those patients reporting one or no chronic symptoms.” Adult
patients currently diagnosed with gout and receiving medical treatment
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were eligible for inclusion. As this was
an observational, cross-sectional study, we also examined the
relationship between demographic information and participants’
perceptions of their disease and the effects of treatment, as well as
the patients’ knowledge about gout and the management of gout. SPSS
Statistics for Windows, version 22 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) was used
to analyze the data. Frequencies, percentages, and standard deviations
were determined. Pearson chi-square analysis was used to determine
associations between dependent variables. Statistical significance was
defined as P<0.05.