ABSTRACT

Background: Clubfoot is a childhood congenital abnormality that can lead to disabilities, which can last a lifetime if untreated. There are several types of interventions to treat this condition. However, these interventions depend on the age of presentation and result in good outcomes if started early. This study aimed to investigate the level of public awareness about clubfoot in the Al-Qassim region in Saudi Arabia.

Method: This observational cross-sectional study was conducted on a population living in the Al-Qassim region in 2020. The study was conducted using a structured, validated questionnaire that was available online. The chi-square test and t-test were used to analyze the data. All the analyses were conducted using SPSS (version 21).

Results: This study included 7085 individuals from the Al-Qassim region. The level of public awareness was as follows

15.6% had poor knowledge, 43.8% had fair knowledge, and 40.6% had high knowledge. The most common sources of knowledge were relatives and friends (42.55%)

and websites (29.83%). A multivariate analysis showed that several factors affected the levels of knowledge, including gender (P˂0.0001), having an affected child (P˂0.0003), certain sources of information, affected persons (P˂0.005), relatives and friends (P˂0.0001), websites (P˂0.0001), and printed media (P˂0.0001).

Conclusion: A moderate level of knowledge was found among the population in the Al-Qassim region. Their knowledge level was affected by several factors, such as the source of information. Therefore, educational interventions, such as campaigns, are needed to improve the awareness level, leading to better outcomes.