Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE(KAP) TOWARDS NUTRACEUTICALS AMONG SECOND YEAR MEDICAL UNDERGRADUATES OF TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL, KANPUR

Pooja Agrawal*, Virendra Kushwaha, Brijesh Pathak and Tanvi Azmi

ABSTRACT

Nutraceuticals are products, other than nutrition are used as medicine, that offers protection against chronic disease referred to as a nutraceutical. They can be used to slow down ageing, stop chronic diseases from occurring or support the body's structure or functions. Herbal nutraceuticals are helpful against diseases like allergies, inflammatory, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and immune disease as well as cancer. NMC has included a competency regarding nutraceuticals to medical undergraduates in CBME based teaching, so that students could gain knowledge about nutraceuticals and could serve the society. Material & Method: We conducted a self-designed structured questionnaire-based study consisting of 18 questions. Out of 18, 5 questions,5-point Likert scale and 13 closed end type questions on Google form to assess the awareness and knowledge, attitude and practice among second year medical undergraduates towards nutraceuticals in Department of Pharmacology, GSVM Medical college Kanpur, the data obtained was tabulated analysed and results calculated in the form of percentage. Result: Total of 250 students, 138 students participated in pre-test and 131 participated in post-test. Percentage of male students in pre & post-test were more 57.9% (80) and 56.4% (74) compared to female students 42.02% (58) and 43.5% (57). Knowledge and practice have shown improvement after post-test with low positive attitude. Conclusion: The present study concludes that knowledge and practices among medical students regarding nutraceuticals was average good but the positive attitude was low. So, there is need to increase awareness about nutraceuticals at every level in health care system as well as in patients.

Keywords: Nutraceuticals, Foods, Chronic disease, Medical undergraduates, CBME.