RESUMO
Introduction: multivitamins are normally used to treat vitamin deficiencies. They may cause constipation and diarrhea. We are concerned to see the prevalence for using multivitamins supplementation and awareness of their side effects among saudi people
Methods: we conducted a cross sectional study and data collected by distributing an electronic questionnaire from 6/3 to 15/8/2017 and approved by the King Faisal University in Alhass, SA. Both gender above 18 years were included and excluded people below them. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS
Results: this study was applied on 471persons from different areas of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most of them were female 67.5 %.the age of our studied group was above 18 years. Most of them was healthy, pre-university, from western area and used multivitamins for weight gain. 15.5% had harmful effect and 69.6% had vitamins or minerals deficiency [51.7% iron deficiency]. 43.1% used them with no prescription and 85% used as pill. 80.8% considers them are important to their health and 35.8% believe there is no difference between using vitamins with or without medical advice. 24.9% believe they have no side effects and16.3% believe that they are sufficient for the variety and quantity of food.70.7% believe that the amount of vitamins in the food is not sufficient for the daily body and 42.5% read about vitamins from scientific books
Conclusion: the majority of the participants were using vitamins according to medical advice and there is a less percentage of people that experienced a side effect from using that supplementations
Objectives: to determine the prevalence, reasons, source of information of multivitamins supplement uses, and their side effects