Awareness regarding the importance of calcium and vitamin D among the undergraduate pharmacy students in Bangladesh

Abstract

BackgroundCalcium and vitamin D are two important micronutrients required for maintaining proper bone health. Previous works intended to determine the status of these micronutrients in local population have reported that the people in Bangladesh are at high risk of calcium insufficiency and hypovitaminosis D related health complications. Lack of awareness and insufficient knowledge of the essentiality of these two nutrients are assumed to cause this problem in Bangladesh. The present study was designed and conducted to establish a basic understanding on the level of gap of knowledge and awareness among pharmacy students at undergraduate level in Bangladesh.FindingsA total of 713 students of Bachelor of Pharmacy course participated in the study. The students were asked about basic idea related to calcium and vitamin D and the disorders due to their deficiency, name of common foods containing calcium and vitamin D, their perception regarding the essentiality of the said nutrients etc. It was found that most of the students were familiar with the importance of calcium (98.9%) and vitamin D (99.3%) in bone health. 82.2% students know about the term osteoporosis. Unfortunately, 10.7% and 18.8% students failed to mention at least one food that is rich in calcium and vitamin D, respectively. Most of the students got familiar about the nutrients from their teachers (48.9%) and textbooks (32.8%).ConclusionBeing a student of pharmacy, the students should have more comprehensive knowledge about calcium and vitamin D. The present study indicates that the pharmacy students have lack of knowledge about calcium and vitamin D and thus it can be clearly predicted that the condition of general people may be worse.

What Do People Know and Believe about Vitamin D?

“…They were also more concerned with their VitD status. This was previously observed [26,33,35,36] and may be due to the fact that women usually show more interest in nutrition- and health-related issues but also that, as an “at-risk” group for VitD insufficiency and bone-related disorders, they may be more informed by their physicians, as observed in our study.…”

“…In our population, as in previous studies [19,21,28,29,32,33,34,35,36], knowledge regarding VitD dietary sources was insufficient and contrasted, depending on the source. Fatty fish, cod liver oil or fortified dairy products were known by 50%–60% of our participants while regular dairy products, offal or eggs were only known by 20%–30%.…”

“…Such information would be of interest for practitioners and public health institutions to improve the communication regarding VitD. Previous studies performed in several countries (mostly targeting specific groups) showed that VitD-related knowledge was limited [19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36]. To our knowledge, no study was performed in a large European sample from the general population and few linked VitD-related knowledge to various individual characteristics (including measured VitD status).…”

Epidemic of Vitamin D Deficiency and Its Management: Awareness among Indian Medical Undergraduates

“…In our population, as in previous studies [13, 20–23], knowledge regarding vitamin D dietary sources was insufficient. Vitamin D deficiency may be overlooked in Asian countries including India, perhaps on the assumption that vitamin D deficiency is unlikely to occur in regions that receive ample sunshine throughout the year [24–26].…”

Present Prospectus of Malnutrition in Bangladesh: A Comprehensive Review

“…Folic acid (FA) supplementation makes easy urinary emission of arsenic. An enhanced appreciative of interactions linking onecarbon metabolism intermediates may pick up the capability to plan nutrition interventions that further make possible arsenic excretion [27].…”