Sa'ed Zyoud

Publication of scientific articles related to khat (Catha edulis) in peer-reviewed journals is considered a measure of research productivity. The principal objectives of this study were to quantify the research contribution related to khat at the global level, as well as to determine its relative growth rate, collaborative measures taken, productivity at the institutional level, and the most prolific journals publishing on the topic. On the basis of title words related to khat, publications were identified for all data in Scopus bibliographic database's history up to December 31, 2014. The research productivity for the top 10 countries was evaluated in relation to the population size and gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013. The criteria were met by 651documents published in 51 countries. The largest number of articles associated with khat was from the UK (15.2 %), followed by Yemen (10.3 %), the USA (9.7 %) and Ethiopia (9.1 %). Ethiopia, Yemen, and Kenya had the highest productivity of publications after standardization by population size and GDP. Furthermore, Yemen achieved the highest number of collaborations, by having researchers from 19 countries. Ethiopia followed, having researchers from 16 countries. This bibliometric study provides a demonstration for the worldwide research activity regarding khat. The number of articles related to khat has increased rapidly over the last 10 years. The present study is a good starting point to evaluate research activity in the field of khat. Although the data shows a promising increase in the research activity, the quantity of khat-related research is still too little compared to the massive use of khat in certain countries.

Identifying factors associated with adherence is of great value in clinical practice. The objective of this study was to investigate medication adherence, beliefs about medicines held by people with chronic illness and whether beliefs influence medication adherence. The study was carried out at primary health care clinic of the Palestinian Medical Military Services in Nablus, Palestine. The beliefs about medicines questionnaire was used to assess beliefs and Morisky medication adherence scale was used to assess adherence. A total of 187 patients were interviewed. Most participants (79.6%) agreed or strongly agreed that their medications were necessary for their current health. However, 58.2% of the participants were concerned about having to take their medicines on a regular basis and 57.8% were concerned about becoming dependent on their medicines. None of the demographic and clinical variables was significantly associated with medication adherence. However, multivariate analysis s...

ABSTRACT Palestine is a small newly established state in the Middle East. The objective of this study was to assess the quantity and quality of research output from Palestine after Oslo peace accords. The data used for this study were retrieved from Scopus database (officially known as Sciverse Scopus). Bibliometric analysis was used to identify the pattern of publication, relative growth rate, authorship pattern, collaborative measures, author's productivity, most prolific authors, and most prolific journals. A total of 3,585 published documents were retrieved from Palestine. A steady increase was observed after 2001. The h-index of the retrieved documents was 57. Fifty-three (1.48%) documents were published in Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, whereas 52 (1.45%) and 49 (1.37%) documents were published in Journal of Dispersion Science and Technology and Asian Journal of Chemistry, respectively. Half of the top 20 journals in which Palestinian researchers had published their articles were un-indexed in Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) web of knowledge. The highest number of documents published by a Palestinian researcher was 79. The main subject area of published documents from Palestine was medicine (717; 20.00%), followed by chemistry (551, 15.37%), and engineering (530, 14.78%). The top countries involved in research collaboration with Palestine were the United States (422, 11.70%), followed by Germany (381; 10.71%), and the United Kingdom (208; 5.83%). There was a significant correlation between number of collaborating countries with Palestine in one hand, and quantity and quality of research activity in Palestine on the other hand. The number of collaborating countries with Palestine increased almost ten-fold from 1995 to 2012. Research output from Palestine showed steady growth since the Oslo peace accords. Research output was high from certain scientific disciplines while was lagging from others. Future emphasis on joint research, international collaboration, and publishing in indexed journals is needed.

In primary health care centres, upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) in children are commonly encountered by physicians. Viruses cause most URTIs, but parents' attitudes often represent an important reason for antibiotic abuse, which leads to the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance. The goal of this study was to examine parents' knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) about antibiotic use for children with URTIs in Palestine. A cross-sectional study was performed in primary health care centres in Nablus city from 1 June to 31 October 2012. A questionnaire was developed and administered to determine parents' KAP regarding antibiotic use for their children with URTIs. Three hundred and eighty-five parents completed the questionnaire. A total of 79.7 % of the parents were attentive to the truth that antibiotic misuse is responsible for bacterial resistance. Only 18.9 % of parents thought that antibiotics did not have any harmful side effects. Fifty nine per cent of parents did not agree that URTIs are mostly viral in origin and are self-limited. Almost 73 % of parents choose antibiotics as a treatment for URTIs, while earache (68 %) and fever (64 %) were the most common reasons for which parents expected antibiotics. However, more than 38 % of the parents never asked the paediatrician to prescribe antibiotics, and only 6 % congratulated their paediatricians for not prescribing antibiotics. Although there is a trusted relationship between parents and paediatricians, Palestinian parents have insufficient knowledge related to antibiotic use for URTIs in children, which results in inappropriate attitudes and practices. Educational interventions for both parents and physicians will reduce unnecessary antibiotic use and resistance.

Bibliometric studies, which involve the use of statistical methods, are increasingly being used for research assessment. A bibliometric analysis was conducted to evaluate the publication pattern of methaemoglobinaemia research output at the global level based on the Scopus database. We analysed selected documents with "methemoglobinemia", or "methaemoglobinaemia" as a part of the title and reported the following parameters: trends of publication output, country of publication, journal pattern, collaborative measures, citations pattern, and institute productivity. A total of 1770 articles were published worldwide. The time trend for the number of articles showed an increase after 2000. The highest number of articles related to methaemoglobinaemia was from the USA (24.8 %), followed distantly by the UK (4.5 %), India (3.7 %), and France (3.7 %). No data related to methaemoglobinaemia were published from 152 countries. The total number of citations at the date of data collection was 10,080, with an average of 5.7 citations per document. The USA and UK had the highest h-index of 31 and 14, respectively, and six countries had an h-index of 9-14. It is notable that Canada was ranked eighth in the number of publications but fourth in h-index and India was ranked third in the number of publications but eighth in h-index. Furthermore, Canada produced the most internationally collaborated papers out of the total number of publications for each country (16.1 %), followed by the UK (13.9 %). This bibliometric analysis provides data contributing to a better understanding of the methaemoglobinaemia research field. The number of publications on methaemoglobinaemia increased significantly after 2000. The USA was the most productive country as measured by total publications. The USA and UK achieved the highest h-index in the field of methaemoglobinaemia research, signifying a higher quality of research than other countries.

Bibliometric analysis is increasingly employed as a useful tool to assess the quantity and quality of research performance. The specific goal of the current study was to evaluate the performance of research output originating from Arab world and published in international Integrative and Complementary Medicine (ICM) journals. Original scientific publications and reviews from the 22 Arab countries that were published in 22 international peer-reviewed ICM journals during all previous years up to December 31(st) 2013, were screened using the Web of Science databases. Five hundred and ninety-one documents were retrieved from 19 ICM journals. The h-index of the set of papers under study was 47. The highest h-index was 27 for Morocco, 21 for Jordan, followed by 19 for each Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and Egypt, and the lowest h-index was 1 for each of Comoros, Qatar, and Syrian Arab Republic. No data related to ICM were published from Djibouti, and Mauritania. After adjusting for economy and population power, Somalia (89), Morocco (32.5), Egypt (31.1), Yemen (21.4), and Palestine (21.2) had the highest research productivity. The total number of citations was 9,466, with an average citation of 16 per document. The study identified 262 (44.3 %) documents with 39 countries in Arab-foreign country collaborations. Arab authors collaborated most with countries in Europe (24.2 %), followed by countries in the Asia-Pacific region (9.8 %). Scientific research output in the ICM field in the Arab world region is increasing. Most of publications from Arab world in ICM filed were driven by societal use of medicinal plants and herbs. Search for new therapies from available low cost medicinal plants in Arab world has motivated many researchers in academia and pharmaceutical industry. Further investigation is required to support these findings in a wider journal as well as to improve research output in the field of ICM from Arab world region by investing in more national and international collaborative research project.

Environmental and health-related effects of solid waste material are considered worldwide problems. The aim of this study was to assess the volume and impact of Arab scientific output published in journals indexed in the Science Citation Index (SCI) on solid waste. We included all the documents within the SCI whose topic was solid waste from all previous years up to 31 December 2012. In this bibliometric analysis we sought to evaluate research that originated from Arab countries in the field of solid waste, as well as its relative growth rate, collaborative measures, productivity at the institutional level, and the most prolific journals. A total of 382 (2.35 % of the overall global research output in the field of solid waste) documents were retrieved from the Arab countries. The annual number of documents published in the past three decades (1982-2012) indicated that research productivity demonstrated a noticeable rise during the last decade. The highest number of articles associated with solid waste was that of Egypt (22.8 %), followed by Tunisia (19.6), and Jordan (13.4 %). the total number of citations over the analysed years at the date of data collection was 4,097, with an average of 10.7 citations per document. The h-index of the citing articles was 31. Environmental science was the most researched topic, represented by 175 (45.8 %) articles. Waste Management was the top active journal. The study recognized 139 (36.4 %) documents from collaborations with 25 non-Arab countries. Arab authors mainly collaborated with countries in Europe (22.5 %), especially France, followed by countries in the Americas (9.4 %), especially the USA. The most productive institution was the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, with 6.3 % of total publications. Despite the expected increase in solid waste production from Arab world, research activity about solid waste is still low. Governments must invest more in solid waste research to avoid future unexpected problems. Finally, since solid waste is a multidisciplinary science, research teams in engineering, health, toxicology, environment, geology and others must be formulated to produce research in solid waste from different scientific aspects.

2 Clinical Pharmacy Program, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia Objectives: Intravenous N-acetylcysteine (IV-NAC) is widely re-cognized as the antidote of choice for acetaminophen overdose. [1] However, its use is not without adverse drug reactions (ADR) which might affect therapeutic outcome or lead to treatment delay. [2,3] The aims of this study were to investigate the type and incidence of ADR induced by IV-NAC in patients treated for acetaminophen overdose and to assess the causality of individual ADR to IV-NAC using Nar-anjo's algorithm. [4] Methods: This is a retrospective study of patients admitted to the hospital for acute acetaminophen overdose over a period of 5 years (January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2008). The primary outcome of interest in this study was the occurrence of ADR during NAC ad-ministration. The probability of an ADR was assessed using the Naranjo algorithm, which consists of 10 questions), and has been u...

Calcium channel blockers (CCBs) were the most common agents associated with a significant morbidity and mortality rate. The main objective of this study was to examine the publication pattern related to CCBs poisoning at the global level using bibliometric analysis of articles published in SciVerse Scopus online database. Data were searched for documents that contained specific words regarding CCB poisoning as keywords in the title. No time period limitations were specified in the search regarding the starting year. The ending date of the search was 31 December 2012. The criteria were met by 713 publications from 53 countries. The largest number of articles associated with CCBs was from the United States (30%), followed by the United Kingdom (7.4%), Japan (6%), and Germany (5.6%). No data related to CCBs were published from 159 (75%) of 212 countries registered in World Bank online database. There was no correlation between the number of published articles in the country and its pop...

Parental concern about childhood fever and consequent use of antipyretics is increasing. Little is known about childhood fever management among Arab parents. No scales to measure parents’ fever management practices in Palestine are available. The aim of this study was to validate the Arabic version of the Parent Fever Management Scale (PFMS) using a sample of parents in Palestine. A standard “forward–backward” procedure was used to translate PFMS into Arabic language. It was then validated on a convenience sample of 402 parents between July and October 2012. Descriptive statistics were used, and instrument reliability was assessed for internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Validity was confirmed using convergent and known group validation. Applying the recommended scoring method, the median (interquartile range) score of the PFMS was 26 (23–30). Acceptable internal consistency was found (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.733) and the test–retest reliability value was 0.92 (P &l...

Evaluation of the association between treatment satisfaction and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) may enable health-care providers to understand the issues that influence quality of life and to recognize the aspects of hypertension treatment that need improvement to enhance the long-term treatment outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between HRQoL and treatment satisfaction in a sample of Palestinian hypertensive patients. A cross-sectional study was conducted, adopting the Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication (TSQM 1.4) for the assessment of treatment satisfaction and using the European Quality of Life scale (EQ-5D-5L) for the assessment of HRQoL. Descriptive and comparative statistics were used to describe socio-demographic and disease-related characteristics of the patients. All analyses were performed using SPSS v 15.0. Four hundred and ten hypertensive patients were enrolled in the study. This study findings indicate a positive ...

steoporosis is an important health problem with serious consequences. Evaluation of osteoporosis scientific output from Arab countries has not been explored and there are few internationally published reports on research activity about osteoporosis. The main objectives of this study were to analyze the research output originating from Arab countries and 3 Middle Eastern non-Arab countries, particularly Israel, Turkey and Iran in the field of osteoporosis. Original scientific articles or reviews published from the 21 Arab countries, Israel, Turkey and Iran about "osteoporosis" were screened using the ISI Web of Science database. The time frame for the result was up to year 2012. The total number of original and review research articles published globally about osteoporosis was 43,571. The leading country in osteoporosis research was United States of America (14,734; 33.82%). Worldwide, Turkey ranked 16th while Israel and Iran ranked 24th and 31st respectively. Among Arab co...

An-Najah National University (ANNU) is a Palestinian university that was established more than 35 years ago. The objective of this study was to do a bibliometric assessment of research output, which describes the growth, contribution, and impact of research carried out by the faculty members, researchers, or students of ANNU in the past 35 years. The data used for this study were retrieved from Scopus database. Bibliometric analysis was used to identify the pattern of publication, relative growth rate, authorship pattern, collaborative measures, author’s productivity, most prolific authors, and most prolific journals. A total of 791 published documents were retrieved for ANNU. Seventeen documents (2.1%) were published in Acta Crystallographica Section E Structure Reports Online, whereas 16 (2.0%) were published in Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A: Environmental Science and Engineering, and 10 (1.3%) were published in International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology ...

Reducing nutrition-related health problems in Arab countries requires an understanding of the performance of Arab countries in the field of nutrition and dietetics research. Assessment of research activity from a particular country or region could be achieved through bibliometric analysis. This study was carried out to investigate research activity in "nutrition and dietetics" in Arab countries. Original and review articles published from Arab countries in "nutrition and dietetics" Web of Science category up until 2012 were retrieved and analyzed using the ISI Web of Science database. The total number of documents published in "nutrition and dietetics" category from Arab countries was 2062. This constitutes 1% of worldwide research activity in the field. Annual research productivity showed a significant increase after 2005. Approximately 60% of published documents originated from three Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Tun...

Background Chronic respiratory diseases, like bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are a worldwide health problem. Quantitative and qualitative assessment of asthma and COPD-related research from Arab countries has not been explored and there are few internationally published reports on such field. The main objectives of this study were to analyze research output originating from Arab countries in the field of bronchial asthma and COPD. Methods Original scientific articles or reviews published from the 22 Arab countries were screened using specific words pertaining to asthma and COPD using Scopus database and search engine. Research productivity was evaluated based on: (a) total and trends of contribution of each Arab country to asthma and COPD research and (b) journals in which researchers from Arab countries published their research. Results The total number of original research and review articles published globally about bronchial asthma and COPD wa...

Background Obesity is a serious worldwide medical condition, considered by some researchers as one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century. The main objective of this study was to assess the quantity and quality of obesity-related research from Arab countries and compare it with that from non-Arab Middle Eastern countries. Methods Original scientific articles or reviews published by Arab countries about obesity up until 2011 were screened using the ISI Web of Science database. Research activity was assessed by analyzing the annual research productivity, journals names, citations, top 10 active institutions, and the contribution of each Arab country to obesity research. Results The total number of original and review research articles published globally about obesity was 110,167. The leading country in obesity research was United States of America (42.47%). Turkey, Israel, and Iran were in the top 30 countries while Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Egypt, and Kuw...

To meet the future challenges of infectious diseases and limit the spread of multidrug resistant microorganisms, a better understanding of published studies in the field of infectious diseases is needed. The objective of this study was to analyze the quantity and quality of research activity in the field of infectious diseases in Arab countries and compare it with that in non-Arab countries. Documents published in Arab countries within the research category of "infectious diseases" were extracted and analyzed using the Web of Science database. The data analyzed represent research productivity during the time interval between 1900 - 2012. Worldwide, the total number of documents published in the field of infectious diseases up to 2012 was 227,188. A total of 2,408 documents in the field of infectious diseases were published in Arab countries, which represents 1.06% of worldwide research output. Research output from Arab countries in the field of infectious diseases was low ...

The objective of this study was to analyze quantity, assess quality, and investigate international collaboration in research from Arab countries in the field of public, environmental and occupational health. Original scientific articles and reviews published from the 22 Arab countries in the category "public, environmental & occupational health" during the study period (1900 - 2012) were screened using the ISI Web of Science database. The total number of original and review research articles published in the category of "public, environmental & occupational health" from Arab countries was 4673. Main area of research was tropical medicine (1862; 39.85%). Egypt with 1200 documents (25.86%) ranked first in quantity and ranked first in quality of publications (h-index = 51). The study identified 2036 (43.57%) documents with international collaboration. Arab countries actively collaborated with authors in Western Europe (22.91%) and North America (21.04%). Most of the...

Poisoning exposures continue to be a significant cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The lack of facilities, treatment resources, and antidotes in hospitals may affect the treatments provided and outcomes. This study aimed to determine the availability of gastrointestinal (GI) decontamination, stabilisation, elimination enhancement resources, and antidotes for the management of acute toxic exposures and poisonings in emergency departments (EDs) among various types of governmental and private hospitals in Palestine. A cross-sectional study using semi-structured questionnaire was performed. Data were collected based on hospital resources; GI decontamination, stabilisation, elimination enhancement resources and antidotes from Palestinian hospitals. Eighteen hospitals (94.7%) have responded. Among them, paracetamol poisoning was the most frequently reported cases by EDs (mean frequency score = 7.6 ± 2.1), followed by bee stings (mean = 6.9 ± 2.7) and organophosphate poisoning (mean = 6.7 ± 2.7). The availabilities of most resources related to GI decontamination items varied substantially with hospital type, but these differences were not statistical significant. The availability of stabilisation resources was not significantly different between hospitals types. For the availability of techniques used to enhance the elimination of toxic substances, there were variations between the hospitals types. However, these differences were not statistical significant, except for haemodialysis (p = 0.003) which was more available in governmental hospitals. For the availability of antidotes, none of the hospitals had sufficient stock of all antidotes listed. In relation to hospital type, there was variability in the availability of antidotes, but this did not reach statistical significance, except for deferoxamine (p < 0.001), which was available in all governmental hospitals but none of the private hospitals. The availability of treatment resources and antidotes in Palestinian hospitals was not adequate except for stabilisation resources. The availability of such resources acts as a marker for the level of readiness of hospital EDs in Palestine for the management of acute toxic exposure and poisoning. The implementation of a minimum list of antidotes and treatment resources would be useful to increase the level of resources. Coordination between Palestinian poison control and drug information centre and hospitals is also important.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the scientific research on multiple sclerosis using a bibliographic analysis of articles published during the period 2003-2012. The items under study were obtained from the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) database, which was accessed through the Web of Science (WOS) platform. All records with the term 'multiple sclerosis' in the title, plus all articles published in the journals Multiple Sclerosis and Multiple Sclerosis Journal, were analysed. A total of 9778 articles, with 160,966 citations, were retrieved on multiple sclerosis, and the majority of the articles were published in Multiple Sclerosis Journal (n = 1511). The articles were published in journals belonging to 135 different subject areas, with the greatest number of papers falling under the category of clinical neurology. The countries that published the largest numbers of articles were the United States (US) (n = 2786), Italy (n = 1263), the United Kingdom (n = 1147) and Germany (n = 1018). International collaborations produced 20.4% of the papers. We emphasise the progressive growth of publications worldwide, the publication of articles in a wide variety of journals covering numerous subject areas, and the research leadership of Western countries, most notably European countries, the US and Canada.

To evaluate therapeutic options for the prevention of radiocontrast media (RCM)-induced nephropathy, a model was developed in which rats received NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) for 10 wk in order to inhibit nitric oxide (NO) synthetase. This study tests the hypothesis that infusion of an adenosine antagonist before RCM application may avoid the vasoconstrictive response in NO-depleted rats. Rats received L-NAME for 10 wk orally (50 mg/L drinking water) to achieve NO depletion. Renal function was determined by [3H]inulin clearance for analysis of the GFR and by flowmetry for assessing renal blood flow (RBF). After a control clearance period (baseline clearance period), the renal response to RCM application (sodium diatrizoate, 2 ml/kg body wt) was measured two times every 30 min starting 30 min after RCM application (clearance periods 1 and 2). L-NAME rats and control rats received two adenosine antagonists. The nonselective adenosine antagonist theophylline was given as an initial bolus of 50 mumol/kg body wt within 10 min, followed by continuous infusion of 100 mumol/kg body wt per h, and the specific adenosine A1-receptor antagonist 8-cyclopentyl-1,3-dipropylxanthine (DPCPX) was given as a bolus of 100 micrograms/kg body wt before RCM application. Results were compared with vehicle infusion. In the control group, no significant change of GFR or RBF could be detected after application of RCM with or without prior infusion of DPCPX or theophylline. In L-NAME rats, RBF decreased significantly after RCM application (baseline, 5.6 +/- 0.2 ml/min; first clearance period, 4.6 +/- 0.3 ml/min [P < 0.05]; second clearance period, 4.3 +/- 0.3 [P < 0.01]). GFR was also reduced in L-NAME rats without previous infusion of theophylline or DPCPX (baseline, 0.95 +/- 0.1 ml/min; first clearance period, 0.83 +/- 0.1 ml/min; second clearance period, 0.69 +/- 0.1 ml/min [P = 0.058]). Prior treatment with either theophylline or DPCPX resulted in complete protection against a decline of RBF and GFR induced by RCM in L-NAME rats. Rats with chronic NO blockade showed a significant increase of the renal vasoconstrictive effect of contrast media. Application of L-NAME in rats seems to constitute a suitable animal model to study the pathophysiology of radiocontrast media-induced nephropathy. In this animal model, administration of adenosine antagonists prevented the decline of GFR and RBF.