Physicians’ Perspective on Diabetes Mellitus Management within the Context of Personalized Medicine Era in Tabuk Governorate, Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: Minimizing the number of therapy failures and decreasing the diabetic complications can be achieved by the application of personalising diabetes therapy, based on patient`s genetics, however, currently, personalised Medicine (PM) in diabetes mellitus management is not extensively applied. AIM: To assess the knowledge, attitudes, and willingness of physicians in practising of PM in diabetes management. METHODS: A cross-sectional analytical study was implemented among 126 physicians from six different governmental hospitals and 12 primary care centres selected by the stratified random sampling technique in the Tabuk region of Saudi Arabia. A structured self-administered questionnaire was utilised for data collection. A simple scoring system (scale of 5 points) was utilised to assess knowledge and willingness. Likert scale was applied to evaluate the attitudes towards practising PM in DM management by the fixed choice response formats. RESULTS: The majority of the participants (97.62%) claimed not receiving any PM and/or genomic medicine training. Most of them (82.54%) expressed unsatisfactory knowledge concerning personalised DM, whereas the medium level of attitudes was reported among 57.14% of them and a good level of willingness had been observed among 76.98% of the physicians. CONCLUSION: Emphasizing on essential personalised DM management knowledge aspects should be given a considerable priority. Fortunately, positive attitudes and goodwill of physicians towards PM are encouraging and should be supported by policymakers.