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).