Knowledge and attitudes towards vitamin / mineral supplements in patients admitted to the family medicine outpatient clinics
Background and Aim: The variety of vitamin/mineral supplements and their usage among people has increased in the last decades. Although using vitamin/mineral supplements (VMS) is beneficial, high levels of VMS intake can also have harmful effects as a result of misuse. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge and attitudes of patients applying to family medicine outpatient clinics about vitamin/mineral supplements.
Methods: The present study was conducted with consecutive patients who were admitted to the family medicine outpatient clinic in our hospital two months’ period and who gave their consent to join the study.A semi-structured questionnaire consisting of 13 questions about sociodemographic features, knowledge, attitudes and perceptions on vitamins and minerals were applied to the participants. The answers to the questionnaire were analyzed by statistical methods using NCSS 2007 package program.
Results: Among 156 participants, a total of 129 participants aged between 18-62 years and consisting of 54 women and 75 men had filled out the questionnaire completely and were included to the study. Around 76% were at least high school graduates.Overweight and obese patients were 41.8%.Among those who used regular VMS (29,5%;n=38);women were more than men (p=0,021); educational status and being overweight or obese did not affect the use of VMS. The most frequently used VMS were vitamin D (%50),iron (%29),vitamin B12 (%21) and vitamin C (%16). Women were more aware of VMS use for treatment purposes than men (p=0,029).Most of the participants thought that consulting a doctor (90.6%) and performing blood tests (86.9%) were necessary before taking VMS. Among participants who were aware of hazards of excess vitamins (76.2%) high school and university of graduates were more (p=0,037).The participants reported that they obtained information about vitamin/mineral supplements from healthcare professionals (60.5%) mostly followed by radio/television(41.9%), newspapers and magazines(34.9%), friends and relatives(14.7%) respectively. Women who stated that they obtained information from the healthcare professionals were more than men(p=0,001).
Conclusion: Awareness about VMS was high in our study group, and it was especially evident in women and those with a high education level. More women than men obtained information from healthcare professionals about VMS which may be related to the frequent use of healthcare services among women. We think that increasing the awareness of patients about the use of vitamin/mineral supplements will improve public health and for this purpose, planning comprehensive and multi-centered studies as well as educational activities will be beneficial.
References
- Foote JA, Murphy SP, Wilkens LR, Hankin JH, Henderson BE, Kolonel LN. Factors associated with dietary supplement use among healthy adults of five ethnicities: the Multiethnic Cohort Study. Am J Epidemiol 2003, 157(10):888–97.
- Cohen PA. Hazards of hindsight-monitoring the safety of nutritional supplements. N Engl J Med 2014;370(14):1277–1280. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1315559.
- Dickinson A, Blatman J, El-Dash N, Franco JC. Consumer usage and reasons for using dietary supplements: report of series of surveys. J Am Coll Nutr 2014;33(2):176-82. doi: 10.1080/07315724.2013.875423.
- Al-Naggar RA, Chen R. Prevalence of vitamin-mineral supplements use and associated factors among young Malaysians. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev 2011;12(4):1023-9.
- Bailey RL, Gahche JJ, Miller PE, Thomas PR, Dwyer JT. Why US Adults Use Dietary Supplements. JAMA Intern Med 2013;173(5):355–361. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.2299.
- Picciano MF, McGuire MK. Use of dietary supplements by pregnant and lactating women in North America. Am J Clin Nutr 2009;89:663-7. 10.3945/ajcn.2008.26811B.
- Munasinghe LL, Willows N, Yuan Y, Veugelers PJ. The prevalence and determinants of use of vitamin D supplements among children in Alberta, Canada: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health 2015;15:1063. doi:10.1186/s12889-015-2404-z.
- Stevens GA, Finucane MM, De-Regil LM, Paciorek CJ, Flaxman SR, Branca F, et al. Global, regional, and national trends in haemoglobin concentration and prevalence of total and severe anaemia in children and pregnant and non-pregnant women for 1995-2011: a systematic analysis of population-representative data. Lancet Glob Health 2013 Jul;1(1): e16-25. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(13)70001-9.
- Chen F, Du M, Blumberg JB, Ho Chui KK, Ruan M, Rogers G, et al. Association among dietary supplement use, nutrient intake, and mortality among U.S. adults: A Cohort study. Ann Intern Med 2019;170(9):604-13. doi: 10.7326/M18-2478.
- Engle-Stone R, Vosti SA, Adams KP, et al. Weighing the risks of high intakes of selected micronutrients compared with the risks of deficiencies. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2019;1446(1):81-101. doi: 10.1111/nyas.14128.
- Kobayashi E, Sato Y, Umegaki K, Chiba T. The Prevalence of dietary supplement use among college students: A Nationwide survey in Japan. Nutrients 2017;9(11):1250. doi:10.3390/nu9111250.
- Kim M, Lee Y, Park K. Vitamin and mineral supplement use among Korean adults: Baseline data from the trace element study of Korean adults in Yeungnam Area. Nutrients 2018;10(1):50.
- Qidwai W, Samani ZA, Azam I, Lalani S. Knowledge, attitude and practice of vitamin supplementation among patients visiting out-patient physicians in a Teaching Hospital in Karachi. Oman Med J 2012;27(2):116-20. doi: 10.5001/omj.2012.24.
- Sekhri K, Kaur K. Public knowledge, use and attitude toward multivitamin supplementation: A cross-sectional study among general public. Int J Appl Basic Med Res 2014;4(2):77–80. doi:10.4103/2229-516X.136780.
- Frey A, Hoffmann I, Heuer T. Characterisation of vitamin and mineral supplement users differentiated according to their motives for using supplements: results of the German National Nutrition Monitoring (NEMONIT). Public Health Nutr 2017;20(12):2173-82. doi:10.1017/S1368980017001021.
- Li K, Kaaks R, Linseisen J, Rohrmann S. Consistency of vitamin and/or mineral supplement use and demographic, lifestyle and health-status predictors: findings from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Heidelberg cohort. Br J Nutr 2010 Oct;104(7):1058-64. doi: 10.1017/S0007114510001728.
- Tarn DM, Karlamangla A, Coulter ID, Knox L, Khang PS, et al. A cross-sectional study of provider and patient characteristics associated with outpatient disclosures of dietary supplement use. Patient Educ Couns 2015;98(7):830-6. doi:10.1016/j.pec.2015.03.020.
- Qato DM, Wilder J, Schumm LP, Gillet V, Alexander GC. Changes in prescription and over-the-counter medication and dietary supplement use among older adults in the United States, 2005 vs 2011. JAMA Intern Med 2016;176(4):473–82. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.8581.
- O’Connor C, Glatt D, White L, Revuelta Iniesta R. Knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards vitamin D in a UK adult population: A Cross-sectional study. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2018;15(11):2387. doi:10.3390/ijerph15112387.
- Jessiman T, Cameron A, Wiggins M, Lucas PJ. A qualitative study of uptake of free vitamins in England. Arch Dis Child 2013;98(8):587–91. doi:10.1136/archdischild-2013-303838.
- Küçükceran H, Başer DA, Kahveci R. Ankara İli Akyurt bölgesindeki gebelerde demir eksikliği anemisi prevalansı ve demir eksikliğine sebep olan faktörler. Konuralp Tıp Dergisi 2018;10(1):13-19.
- Solak I, Cihan FG, Mercan S, Kethuda T, Eryılmaz MA. Evaluation of 25-Hydroxyvitamin D levels in central Anatolia, Turkey. Biomed Res Int 2018;2018:4076548. doi:10.1155/2018/4076548.
- Biesalski HK, Tinz J. Multivitamin/mineral supplements: Rationale and safety – A systematic review. Nutrition 2017;33:76-82. doi:10.1016/j.nut.2016.02.013.
