Supawan Wongteerasuppaya. Factors related to dietary supplement consumption among middle-aged people in Bangkok . Master's Degree(Medical and Health Social Sciences). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2006.
Factors related to dietary supplement consumption among middle-aged people in Bangkok
Abstract:
This study was to investigate factors related to dietary supplement
consumption among 400 middle – aged people in Bangkok who consumed dietary
supplements of some kind. Interview by a questionnaire was used in data collection.
The Chi-square by statistical significance at 0.05 levels was used to find relationship
between different factors. The contingency coefficient was used in testing their
relationship.
Results were that demographic variables had no significant relationship
with dietary supplement consumption. Factors of self-health perception and
perceived health, i.e. perceived susceptibility, perceived seriousness, and perceived
benefits had significant relationship with dietary supplement consumption while
perceived self-efficacy had no significant relationship with dietary supplement
consumption .
It was found that most middle-aged people taking dietary supplements in
this investigation were healthy and had perceived self-efficacy to practice activities
in promoting health at good level. The top three health problems were aggregated fat
and obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol respectively. It was found that
the sample consumed 3 dietary supplement products on average and at the most 6
products. The majority of the sample regularly took them and the top three popular
products were products for supplementing vitamins and minerals, followed by
products for supplementing food stuffs or for strengthening the body and the
products for preventing cholesterol. The most vital factor factors of the cue to action
were the salespersons or the direct sales, followed by advertisements in different
media.
These results showed that there are many middle-aged people taking
dietary supplements and likely to be over consuming them, which might lead to
side- effects and entail health problems in the long term. So, awareness of good
health practices that do not involve dietary supplements should be enhanced and
encouragement of confident in people to follow activities promoting personal
hygiene is indispensable to nurture health and encouraging peoples self-confidence
on health. This also included health checking, counseling and publicizing
knowledge of dietary supplement information which is non profit – driven and
organized by government agencies to providing adequate information about benefits
and side-effects for their decision-making under health necessities of each individual