Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices on Dietary Supplements among Allied Health Sciences Undergraduates of Sri Lanka

Abstract

According to research conducted in foreign coun-tries among undergraduates, there is a huge con-sumption of dietary supplements without proper consultation, and many have encountered adverse effects. However, there have been no satisfactory research studies done on dietary supplement usage among Allied Health Sciences undergraduates in Sri Lanka. The objective of the study was to de-scribe knowledge, attitudes, and practices of die-tary supplement usage among Allied Health Sci-ences undergraduates in Sri Lanka. In this descrip-tive cross-sectional study, a sample taken from a population of 2000 undergraduates of five Allied Health Sciences faculties in Sri Lanka were as-sessed using a structured, self-administered ques-tionnaire during the period from March 2021 to June 2022. Stratified random sampling was used to select participants from each department using population proportion and finalized by using sim-ple random sampling with 354 respondents as the sample size. According to the results obtained, the overall prevalence of dietary supplement usage was 63.8%. Of the individuals who used dietary supplements, 97.3% were female and 2.7% were male. The most common reason for using dietary supplements (91.2%) was to compensate for the lack of nutrients in the diet. Multivitamins and min-erals were the most frequently reported supple-ments (86.7%), followed by fish oil (84.5%), beauty ingredients added supplements (77.4%), weight loss supplements (75.2%), and pro-tein/amino acids (70.4%). Among undergraduates, there was widespread use of internet-driven, self-prescribed dietary supplements intake (95.1%). A significant number of undergraduates took dietary advice from their family members (79.2%). Only 67.3% asked for medical advice from physicians, pharmacists, and dietitians. In conclusion, preva-lence of dietary supplement consumption among participants is high (63.8%) but most of were not confident enough to recommend supplements to others (75.7%). Furthermore, side effects among consumers were minimum (4.9%) and most of them obtained the desired benefit. This study can be used to provide background knowledge for fu-ture researchers.