Manal Bouhaimed

Child safety restraints can reduce risk of death and decrease injury severity from road traffic crashes; however, knowledge about restraints and their use in Kuwait is limited. A cross-sectional, self-administered survey about child car safety was used among a convenience sample of parents of children aged 18 years or younger at five Kuwaiti university campuses. Of 552 respondents, over 44% have seated a child in the front seat and 41.5% have seated a child in their lap while driving. Few parents are aware of and fewer report using the appropriate child restraint; e.g., 36% of parents of infants recognised an infant seat and 26% reported using one. Over 70% reported wearing seat belts either “all of the time” (33%) or “most of the time” (41%). This new information about parents' knowledge and practice regarding child car seat use in Kuwait can inform interventions to prevent child occupant injury and death.

Kuwait mandated seat-belt use by drivers in 1976 and by front seat passengers in 1994. The study objectives were to identify and estimate current factors associated with seat-belt use and levels of potentially unsafe driving behaviours in Kuwait. In 2010, 741 adults were surveyed regarding driving habits and history. Only 41.6% of drivers reported always using a seat belt. Front seat passenger belt use was more common (30.5%) than rear seat belt use (6.5%). Distracted driving behaviours were common, including mobile phone use (‘always’ or ‘almost always’: 51.1%) and texting/SMS (32.4%). Logistic regression indicated that drivers who were young (18–19 years), male, Kuwaiti nationals or non-Kuwaiti Arabs, drove over the speed limit, had traffic violation tickets or >1 car crashes in the last year, were less likely to use seat belts. Targeted initiatives to increase public awareness and to enforce car-safety legislation, including use of seat belts, are necessary to decrease the health burden of car crashes in Kuwait.

Objective: The aim of this study was to measure the students’ perceptions of the educational environment in a medical school undergoing curricular transition from a traditional to a problem-based learning (PBL) program in the academic year 2006–2007. Materials and Methods: The Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) was used to evaluate perception of the educational environment. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to identify the factors related to educational environment perception that differ between students following a traditional curriculum to those following a PBL program at Kuwait University Medical School. Results: Mean DREEM score was 53%. When students moved from the traditional curriculum to the PBL system, Academic Self-Perception deteriorated, while Perception of Atmosphere improved. Academic Self-Perception deteriorated because conventional strategies of learning were perceived as no longer useful, while Perception of Atmosphere improved because of increased relevance of the studies. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that curricular changes require careful planning and thinking, with particular attention upon how they influence the educational climate. When new teaching strategies are introduced, new factors that may lead students to develop an adverse perception of their educational environment may be introduced as well. Identification of such factors can lead to an improved educational outcome.

Background: This study evaluated the operating characteristics of a reading software (Retinalyze^® System, Retinalyze A/S, Hørsholm, Denmark) for automated prescreening of digital fundus images for diabetic retinopathy. Methods: Digital fundus images of patients with diabetes were retrospectively selected from the Bro Taf diabetic retinopathy screening program in Wales, UK in the period of 2002–2004, which has been superseded by the Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service for Wales. A gold standard reference was defined by classifying each patient as having or not having diabetic retinopathy based on overall visual grading of the digitized images using the Bro Taf reading protocol. Automated grading was applied using automated red or bright lesion detection at varying detection sensitivities and adjusting for image quality. Operating characteristics included sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values, and negative predictive values (PPV and NPV, respectively). Results: Automated analysis of four hundred fundus photographs of 192 eyes from 96 patients with diabetes was performed. The automated red lesion detection had a sensitivity of 82%, specificity of 75%, PPV of 41%, and NPV of 95%. Combined automated red and bright lesion detection yielded a sensitivity of 88%, specificity of 52%, PPV of 28%, and NPV of 95%. Performance of the combined red and bright lesion detection at elevated thresholds in images of good quality demonstrated a sensitivity of 93%, specificity of 78%, PPV of 46%, and NPV of 98%. Conclusions: Prescreening for diabetic retinopathy by automated detection of single fundus lesions seem to be achieved with minimal false negativity and can help to decrease the burden of manual diabetic retinopathy screening.