Use of dietary supplements and its influence factors in pregnant women

Objective To evaluate dietary supplements and its influence factors among pregnant women for reasonable selection of nutritional supplements during pregnancy.Methods Questionnaire interviews by trained interviewers were used to collect information on general characters,consumption of dietary supplements,knowledge and attitude to dietary supplements among 473 pregnant women.The women were grouped into control,progestational,gestation,and progestational and gestation group according to the period of supplements usage.Chi-square test,t-test,and F test were used to analyze the data with SPSS 16.0.Results Among the women,274(57.93%) selected dietary supplements.Among the women using ditary supplements,41.67% followed doctors' recommendations and the dietary supplements most frequently selected were vitamins and compound of vitamins and minerals,with 31.75% of the women taking two or more dietary supplements at the same time.Compared with the control group,the difference in educational level was significant between progestational group and progestational and gestation group(P < 0.01); the differences in occupation and family income were significant between gestation group and progestational and gestation group(P < 0.01).The pregnant women's cognition scores of dietary supplements were relatively low with an average score of 64.46±23.99.The pregnant women with different educational background and occupation had different scores of dietary supplements(P < 0.01).Of all the women,86.47% disapproved of taking dietary supplements for a long time and 65.12% thought it was unnecessary to take dietary supplements for adults.Only 51.37% of the women expressed their desires to get more related information.Conclusion Using dietary supplements is universal during gestation,but the choice and cognition of dietary supplements are unbalanced in the pregnant women with different educational level,occupation,income,and age.