Knowledge about urology in the general population of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The knowledge of the general population about the medical specialties is not well studied in our community. Our aim is to explore the amount of knowledge known about urology by the general population.

A questionnaire was completed by 154 respondents in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. After measuring the amount of knowledge in our population, we looked forward to compare it with English as well as French speaking population in North America (NA). We translated to Arabic the same questionnaire used in their study. Two extra questions were added to further serve our aim.

Of the 154 respondents, 66% (102) said that they know little or nothing about urology, and 43% (66) did not know that urology involves surgery. When asked to mention three diseases within the field of urology, only 37% (57) were able to do so. Fourteen percent (21) were unable to mention even one disease. When asked about naming modalities of treatment in urology, 67% (104) were able to mention one or more. The rest were unable to mention even one modality. Most of the wrong answers were related to mixing urology with anatomically related fields rather than pronunciation similarity. Most of the results were better when compared to the studies done in NA.

Although significant proportion of our population know little about the field of urology, the overall result is better when compared to North American population. The clarity of Arabic terminology related to the field may explain the difference.