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Review
. 2023 Mar 19;15(3):e36369.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.36369. eCollection 2023 Mar.

A Methodological Review of Drug-Related Toxicological Studies in Saudi Arabia

Hassan Alwafi  1 , Rayan Khayat  2 , Alaa Banjabi  3 , Emad Salawati  4 , Basil J Alotaibi  5 , Rami Nassir  6 , Abdulelah Aldhahir  7 , Rakan Ekram  8 , Saeed M Alghamdi  9 , Abdallah Y Naser  10
Affiliations
Review

A Methodological Review of Drug-Related Toxicological Studies in Saudi Arabia

Hassan Alwafi et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

This study aimed to conduct a methodological review of drug-related toxicological studies in Saudi Arabia. A systematic review and a methodological analysis were conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Medline and Embase were searched for all types of studies reporting toxicological studies in the English language published until January 10, 2022. The search was conducted using both keywords and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms. The methodological analysis of included studies was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. A total of 3,750 studies were extracted and screened. Of these, 30 observational studies (seven cohort studies and 23 cross-sectional studies) met the inclusion criteria. The methodological scores ranged from five to seven out of 10 possible points. Twelve studies had high quality, and 18 studies had moderate quality. Eight studies focused on adverse drug reactions, eight explored poisoning, four explored drug-related hospitalizations, nine explored drug-induced toxicity, and one explored drug overdose. This research project revealed that most of the drug-related toxicological studies conducted in Saudi Arabia were observational studies of moderate quality. Future studies should focus on the quality of the design and reporting.

Keywords: drug; overdose; substance; toxic; toxicology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. PRISMA flowchart
PRISMA: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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