Relationship Between Nutrition and Supplementary Food Use and Fear of COVID-19 in Nurses Who Worked Actively During the Pandemic

Objectives: This research was conducted to determine the effects of nurses’ fear of COVID-19 on their dietary habits and use of supplements. Methods: The research, which is descriptive and cross-sectional, was shared as an online survey over the social networking site and social networking with the snowball sampling method. It was carried out between December 2020 and March 2021 with 485 nurses who worked actively during the pandemic and agreed to participate in the study. The data were obtained with the questionnaire in line with the relevant literature and the “COVID -19 Fear Scale”. The data were used to evaluate the number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, median, minimum, maximum, t-test, ANOVA test, and x² test. Results: Fear levels were found to be higher in nurses who regularly took food supplements during the pandemic and didn’t have adequate or balanced nutrition, who couldn’t eat most of the time due to working conditions, who took the food supplements to help in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 and who recommended them to the individuals around them (p<0.05). Conclusion: It was determined that there was an increase in nurses’ use of food supplements before and during the pandemic, and this increase was statistically significant (p<0.001). Keywords: Pandemic, nutrition, supplementary food, fear of COVID-19