Knowledge about common food/beverage/herb-drug interactions
Usually, knowledge about anything should have a source. With regards to the sources of information about herbal products, study participants reported that they obtain their information mostly from the internet which was the main resource of information 212 (26.6%), followed by physicians 74 (9.3%), (Figure 2). Half of the study participants 427 (53.6%) selected more than one answer including internet, physicians, family, and pharmacists as seen in Figure 2.
On the other hand, the participants’ knowledge about some commonly used drugs that has the potential to interact with some food/beverage/herb was examined and scored out of five (the total number of questions), the results are demonstrated in Table 3. The overall knowledge score was poor 0.99 ± 1.22 (mean ± SD, out of 5). About one-third of the study participants, 165 (33.6%) correctly answered the fact that they should avoid taking tetracycline antibiotics with milk. Only, 60 (7.6%) participants had known that the consumption of excessive amounts of cranberry juice should be avoided when they are on the anticoagulant warfarin.
Multiple linear regression analysis of factors affecting participants’ knowledge scores highlighted that the female gender, unmarried participants, university degree holders, and health sector employees were significantly (p -value <0.05) affecting the participants’ knowledge score (Table 4).