Prevalence, Knowledge, and Awareness Level of Dietary Supplements Use among Medical Students at the University of Hail, Saudi Arabia

The usage of dietary supplements has grown worldwide due to the widespread notion of their effect on health.Therefore, this study comes to assess the prevalence and awareness level of using dietary supplements among medical college students of Hail University, Hail, Saudi Arabia.Using a two-form questionnaire through a link and a hard copy distributed to all the 400 students enrolled in the College of Medicine at the University of Hail, we have assessed the magnitude and understanding of dietary supplements among 334 responders to the three parts questionnaire, i.e., personal data, prevalence, and general knowledge.43.1% (n = 144) used dietary supplements, while 56.9% (n = 190) did not.The gender-specific usage in females (50.6%) was much higher than in males (35.5%).The main reason for using Dietary Supplements was reported as inadequate Dietary intake in 41.0%.According to our study, almost half of the students utilize dietary supplements for the notion of inadequacy of their dietary intake.We found an association between gender and using of dietary supplements as well as a relation between gender and dietary supplement type.These findings have significant clinical and public health implications.Future vertical studies on the components of food supplements would reveal more insight into the nutritional value and recommended daily allowance of the foodstuff used.