Fatimah Muhammad Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — About 40 researchers are currently receiving training at Al-Amal Hospital to conduct a survey on psychological well being of people in the western region of Saudi Arabia. After the training, the researchers will generate information through personal interviews with members of the public as part of a national project to study “health and life stresses.” Researchers will pick up a sample of 700 individuals, half of them female. The survey will cover Makkah, Jeddah, Madinah and Taif in the initial stage and smaller towns and villages will be included later. Abdulrahman Bin Muammar, head of communications at the National Survey for Health and Life Stresses, said they had determined the necessary sample based on statistics issued by the Central Department of Statistics and Information in 2010. He said there will be two parts to the survey. The first part involves identifying houses to be included in the survey with the help of GPS technology. Researchers will then interview one family member for 10 minutes to get a general idea about the family and later two other members — one male and one female — will be chosen for an exhaustive evaluation. They will conduct extensive interviews with the two research participants. Similar surveys have been completed in Riyadh, Qassim and the Eastern Province and it is now moving to the western region. A third phase will start in late February. Muammar called on the local people to cooperate with the researchers by providing accurate information about them and their family members. He explained that such surveys are beneficial for the research participants, their cities and the nation as a whole. The survey is commissioned by King Salman Center for Disability Research in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, the Department of Statistics, the Ministry of Economy and Planning, King Saud University, World Health Organization, Harvard University and Michigan University.
