Use of Complementary Medicine Products by Medical Students at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia, to Reduce their Body Weight
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- Category: Vol. 84, December 2016
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Use of Complementary Medicine Products by Medical Students at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia, to Reduce their Body Weight, ABDULAZIZ A.A. ALQAHTANI, MOHAMMED A.S. ALSHEHRI, ABDULLAH S.A. ALFARHAN, TURKI Y.S. ALQAHTANI, ABDULMAJEED S.A. ALQAHTANI, ABDULLAH K. ALZAILAIE, SAAD A.M. AL-AMER, BANDAR A.M. ALBARQI, MOHAMMED I. ALALAWI, SALEM M. ALQARNI, AHMED S.A. ALAMRI, IBRAHEEM A. ALKHALDI and OSSAMA A. MOSTAFA
Abstract
Objective: To explore the utilization of complementary medicine products (CMPs) by male medical students at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia to reduce weight.
Subjects and Methods: This study included 400 male medical students at King Khalid University (KKU). A self-administered questionnaire has been constructed by the re-searchers which comprised socio-demographic characteristics of students, use of prescribed medications and/or CMPs during the previous year to reduce weight and participants’ opinions regarding CMPs. Each participants’ weight and height were asked about and BMI was calculated.
Results: Prevalence rates for overweight and obesity among medical students at KKU were 18% and 15.5%, re-spectively. During the last year, 20.3% followed a diet/exercise to reduce their weight, 10.8% took prescribed medications while 19.3% used CMPs, mainly slimming tea, herbs, Oprah pills and the Chinese capsules. Most medical students (78.8%) mentioned that it is easy to obtain CMPs, 58% stated that CMPs can be tried without consulting physicians, 57.3% said that CMPs do not have side effects, unlike diet, exercise or surgery to reduce weight, 44.8% believed that CMPs are effective to manage obesity but 27.5% stated that CMPs can be harmful sometimes and 21.8% mentioned that CMPs can be tried for weight reduction only after prescribed treatment proves ineffective. Prevalence rates for overweight and obesity among medical students were significantly higher among older students (p=0.005) and senior students (p<0.001) and those with high family monthly income (p<0.001). Use of CMPs to reduce weight was significantly more among students whose parent’s educational levels were low (p=0.007 and p<0.001, for father’s education and mother’s education, respectively).
Conclusions: Prevalence of overweight/obesity among medical students at KKU is high. Almost one fifth of male university students at KKU take CMPs to reduce their weight,