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Knowledge about Vitamin D among Women in the United Arab Emirates

Vitamin D deficiency is a significant public health issue as it affects almost 90% of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) population. A bigger portion of this percentage is women due to the physiological changes throughout their life cycle. This study aims to assess the knowledge about vitamin D among wo...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: AlBlooshi, Sharifa, Al Anouti, Fatme, Hijazi, Rafiq
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859501/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36674002
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021252
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author AlBlooshi, Sharifa
Al Anouti, Fatme
Hijazi, Rafiq
author_facet AlBlooshi, Sharifa
Al Anouti, Fatme
Hijazi, Rafiq
author_sort AlBlooshi, Sharifa
collection PubMed
description Vitamin D deficiency is a significant public health issue as it affects almost 90% of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) population. A bigger portion of this percentage is women due to the physiological changes throughout their life cycle. This study aims to assess the knowledge about vitamin D among women in the UAE. This is a quantitative cross-sectional study. Using snowball sampling, an electronic questionnaire was sent to women aged 18 years and above. Overall, 1537 women completed the questionnaire. The participants had mean scores of 49.4 ± 10.7 and 59.6 ± 14.6 for general and nutritional knowledge, respectively. Factors associated with higher scores included older age, marriage, higher educational level, and having tested their vitamin D levels. Factors associated with lower scores included the history of a chronic illness and being employed. Findings indicate that women in this study showed a low level of vitamin D knowledge specifically regarding the non-skeletal benefits of vitamin D and factors that affect vitamin D synthesis. Therefore, health education and promotion programs must be implemented across the UAE to improve overall awareness about vitamin D.
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spelling pubmed-98595012023-01-21 Knowledge about Vitamin D among Women in the United Arab Emirates AlBlooshi, Sharifa Al Anouti, Fatme Hijazi, Rafiq Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Vitamin D deficiency is a significant public health issue as it affects almost 90% of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) population. A bigger portion of this percentage is women due to the physiological changes throughout their life cycle. This study aims to assess the knowledge about vitamin D among women in the UAE. This is a quantitative cross-sectional study. Using snowball sampling, an electronic questionnaire was sent to women aged 18 years and above. Overall, 1537 women completed the questionnaire. The participants had mean scores of 49.4 ± 10.7 and 59.6 ± 14.6 for general and nutritional knowledge, respectively. Factors associated with higher scores included older age, marriage, higher educational level, and having tested their vitamin D levels. Factors associated with lower scores included the history of a chronic illness and being employed. Findings indicate that women in this study showed a low level of vitamin D knowledge specifically regarding the non-skeletal benefits of vitamin D and factors that affect vitamin D synthesis. Therefore, health education and promotion programs must be implemented across the UAE to improve overall awareness about vitamin D. MDPI 2023-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9859501/ /pubmed/36674002 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021252 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
AlBlooshi, Sharifa
Al Anouti, Fatme
Hijazi, Rafiq
Knowledge about Vitamin D among Women in the United Arab Emirates
title Knowledge about Vitamin D among Women in the United Arab Emirates
title_full Knowledge about Vitamin D among Women in the United Arab Emirates
title_fullStr Knowledge about Vitamin D among Women in the United Arab Emirates
title_full_unstemmed Knowledge about Vitamin D among Women in the United Arab Emirates
title_short Knowledge about Vitamin D among Women in the United Arab Emirates
title_sort knowledge about vitamin d among women in the united arab emirates
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859501/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36674002
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021252
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