Research areas:
The group’s general areas of research cover a wide range of topics in the clinical, social and administrative pharmacy fields including:
Currently the group is working on a large project titled: Assessing the impact of, and patient satisfaction with a social media intervention on health literacy of diabetic patients.
The project consists of three phases, first involving an assessment of health literacy of diabetic patients in the UAE, then an application of a social media intervention will be utilized to connect recruited diabetes patients, and will work to enhance the health literacy of these patients. This would be finally followed by development of tools to assess patient satisfaction with the health literacy intervention and its efficacy in enhancing the literacy of the participants.
Group activities and achievements so far: Phase I which involved translation of three diabetes health literacy scales to Arabic language following WHO guidelines for translation and adaptation of instruments. Implementation of this method included the following: accommodating the scales to fit the local Arabic context, forward translation, bilingual expert panel modification and resolution of inadequate language expression or concept, back-translation of the instrument to English by an independent translator (any discrepancies from the original English version are resolved), pre-testing and cognitive interviewing of 10 respondents, and expert panel review to fine tone the final version of the instrument in the Arabic language.
Application for ethics approval has been sought and granted to carry out the research. The group has submitted an application for funding to support data collection and analysis for the three phases of the project. Participant recruitment and consent is currently taking place, the research assistant is meeting with consenting participants at home to facilitate their completion of the newly translated validated questionnaires and to recruit them to the next phase of the project.
A manuscript describing the translation and adaptation of the tools to assess health literacy of diabetic patients in the Arabic language and context is currently in preparation.