Methodology

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.