AlZamil Alanoud, AlHoqail Razan, Alodhayani Abdulaziz
Department of Family Medicine and Employee Health, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Department of Family Medicine and Community Medicine, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Adv Med Educ Pract. 2019 Aug 5;10:585-590. doi: 10.2147/AMEP.S171376. eCollection 2019.
In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the 2016 Census indicated that there were more than 1 million people aged 65 years and older, representing 3.3% of the population. Increased life expectancy will lead to a significant increase in the elderly population in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by 5-fold (18%) in 2050.
This study aimed to measure internal medicine and family medicine residents' attitudes toward elderly patients and evaluate their interest in and barriers to geriatric medicine at King Saud University Medical City.
A cross-sectional observational analytical study using a convenient sampling method was performed in the internal medicine and family medicine departments at King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from April 2017 to August 2017. The total sample size was 101 residents. Data were collected via an online survey using a predesigned validated questionnaire (University of California at Los Angeles Geriatrics Attitudes Scale).
The results showed a neutral attitude of both family and internal medicine residents with =0.9 and =0.6, respectively, without any significant association with their training levels. Moreover, this study showed that 87% of the residents were not willing to consider geriatric medicine as a subspecialty due to the unavailability of a local geriatric training program (59.5%), whereas the cognitive capacity of the patients was the least barrier chosen by the residents (4.8%).
Based on the findings of this study, most of the participants did not receive training in geriatric medicine, which mandates the need for early exposure to geriatric training in medical schools and the need to integrate this type of training within the major postgraduate training programs of the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties .
在沙特阿拉伯王国，2016年人口普查表明，65岁及以上的人口超过100万，占总人口的3.3%。预期寿命的增加将导致沙特阿拉伯王国老年人口到2050年显著增加5倍（18%）。
本研究旨在衡量沙特国王大学医学城内科和家庭医学住院医师对老年患者的态度，并评估他们对老年医学的兴趣及障碍。
2017年4月至2017年8月，在沙特阿拉伯王国利雅得市沙特国王大学医学城的内科和家庭医学科，采用方便抽样法进行了一项横断面观察性分析研究。总样本量为101名住院医师。通过在线调查，使用预先设计的经过验证的问卷（加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校老年医学态度量表）收集数据。
结果显示，家庭医学和内科住院医师的态度均呈中性，分别为0.9和0.6，与他们的培训水平无显著关联。此外，本研究表明，87%的住院医师不愿意将老年医学视为一个亚专业，原因是当地缺乏老年医学培训项目（59.5%），而患者的认知能力是住院医师选择的最少障碍（4.8%）。
基于本研究的结果，大多数参与者未接受过老年医学培训，这就需要医学院尽早开展老年医学培训，并且需要将这类培训纳入沙特卫生专业委员会的主要研究生培训项目中。
