Knowledge and attitude towards hemoglobinopathies among Saudi population: A Cross sectional study in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Background: Hemoglobinopathies are caused by genetic variations resulting in either a qualitative or quantitative abnormality in Hemoglobin. These diseases are prevalent in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia due to consanguineous marriages, which happens to be traditional practice in Saudi Arabia, as a result, faulty genes associated with hemoglobinopathies if present, get transmitted from parents to their offsprings. Methodology: In this study, we have measured the level of knowledge and attitude of Riyadh population towards hemoglobinopathies specifically thalassemia and sickle cell anemia. This is a cross-sectional study which was conducted between December 2020 and May 2021 in Riyadh city of Saudi Arabia with the help of self-administered questionnaire. The sample of the study consisted of 486 individuals from Riyadh city, most of whom were Saudi nationals. Results: Among all study participants, 42.4% had consanguineous marriages between their parents; 67.1% had some knowledge about hemoglobinopathies; 43.6% had some knowledge of thalassemia; 74.5% had some knowledge of sickle cell anemia; 34.4% had awareness about the importance of premarital screening. Regression analysis showed the association of different demographic variables with the awareness of hemoglobinopathies and premarital screening to be statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: It is concluded from this study that, awareness for importance of premarital screening was very less among study participants, so more awareness is required to minimize the prevalence of haemoglobinopathies among general population of Saudi Arabia.