A Study on Perception of Managing Infectious Disease through Social Networking in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia F.A. Alanezi1, F.Hussain1 and H.Q.Yu1 1 Bedfordshire University, London, UK Abstract— The impact of infectious disease on the human population is very dangerous as it could cause severe damage, disruption in human life and can result in many deaths. There is an immediate need for effectively managing the infectious diseases and stop their spreading across other regions. The Infectious Disease management (IDM) process in a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which is one of the developing countries with wide range of healthcare complications, and being one of the countries with high tourist inflow (hajj tourists) has to be very effective and efficient. Considering these factors, this paper presents the preliminary results of the stage one of the research work intended for developing a web IDM system integrating social networking concept. The study presented in this paper followed a mixed method strategy using survey questionnaires and the interviews as the part of data collection and analysis for assessing the perception of IDM through social networking in KSA. The outcome of the study indicated that most of the young participants supported the idea of using social networking in IDM. Other key outcomes include high level acceptance of using web technology and social networking with mapping strategy for creating awareness among the patients through education and information exchange. within the participation. Keywords—Web infectious disease management; social networking for healthcare; infectious disease; e-health; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I. INTRODUCTION Infectious diseases can lead to a major endemic or pandemic outbreak that could have devastating outcomes. The world has experienced such devastating events through the time whether it is Black Death or the recent Ebola outbreak. The seriousness of the infectious diseases should never be underlined, as the effects can be stable or could be instant causing major disruption in human life. According to the World Health Organization Report [1], about 23% of the global deaths in the year 2012 are cause due to infectious diseases. However, the seriousness should not only be understood on the basis of number of deaths, but number of infections should also be considered. An example of the number of cases of HIV/AIDS, and TB can present an overview of the seriousness of infectious diseases. Since the beginning of epidemic, about 75 million people are infected with HIV and about 36 million people died because of HIV, and there are about 35.3 million people living who are infected with HIV in the year 2012, and 1.6 million people died because of HIV in 2012 [2]. About 9 million new TB cases are found alone in the year 2013, and about 1.5 million deaths are caused due to TB in the year 2013 alone. Therefore, it is very essential and necessary to effectively manage the infectious diseases to prevent any damage to the human life. The world is changing rapidly, with new inventions and the technology development in different areas. Utilizing the effective technology solutions can help in managing the spread of infectious diseases more effectively. In recent years, there have been an increasing number of studies on the effectiveness of infectious disease management (IDM) system globally [3][4][5]. The study process and the outcomes of these studies are analyzed, and the effective outcomes are presented systematically in the Table 1. However, most of these studies are conducted for in the USA, Europe and developed countries. Although the Gulf region has one of the highest users globally of internet and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter [6]. TABLE 1 SUMMARY OF SYSTEMATIC REVIEW ON E-HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES AND DISEASE MANAGEMENT Author, Year Reviewed Studies Details Outcome/ Analysis Mosa et al., 2012 55 articles, discussing 83 healthcare applications 57 healthcare applications categorised for healthcare professionals; 11 for medical and nursing students; 15 for patients. The use of smartphone applications are proving to be effective in managing and delivering healthcare services, and is increasing. The healthcare applications can also be used for educating the patients. Blaya et al., 2010 15 qualitative studies, 8 descriptive studies, and 32 controlled studies A total of 45 studies have been included mostly from the developing countries, with maximum studies from India, South Africa, and Kenya. e-health technologies have a positive impact and can be promising in managing and delivering the healthcare services in the developing countries. Need for donors and investors to sponsor outside evaluations so that e-health technologies can be well-targetted. Deglise et al., 2012 123 studies covering 98 healthcare applications. The 98 applications are categorised under prevention (n=33), surveillance (n=19), disease management (n=29), compliance (n=17), and then accordingly specified these functionalities for different diseases. Mobile phones are promising tools for disease control, and management. SMS supported healthcare services can address certain healthcare needs and proved to be cost-effective in developing countries. Considering these aspects, this research focuses on the infectious disease management in the Gulf region particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is one of the middle- income group nations.KSA has a national healthcare system, and the Ministry of Health (MoH) is responsible for managing the healthcare services in the country. It is one of the important places of international tourism; mainly the hajj tourists from different parts of the world visit the country on a pilgrimage. As there is vast moment of international tourists the possibility for the spread of infectious disease is very high 2016 IEEE International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing, and International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Applications to Business, Engineering and Science 2016 IEEE International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing, and International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Applications to Business, Engineering and Science 2016 IEEE International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing, and International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Applications to Business, Engineering and Science 2016 IEEE International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing, and International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Applications to Business, Engineering and Science © IEEE 2016. 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