Abstract
Background
Despite the abundance of sunshine throughout the year, vitamin D deficiency is very prevalent among different Saudi populations.
Aims
The objective of the current study was to evaluate the awareness and intake of vitamin D rich sources and their associations among adults of both genders.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was performed between June 2016 and August 2016 among adult patients and their family members (>18 years) attending 6 primary care centres in Qassim region, Saudi Arabia.
Results
A total of 500 study participants were included in the current analysis. Approximately 54.6 per cent of the participants were males and the most frequent age was 2650 years. The majority of the participants heard of vitamin D before (91.4 per cent), believed in its importance for health (92.8 per cent), were aware of the symptoms of vitamin D deficiency (72.6 per cent), and were able to identify sun exposure (81.4 per cent) and diet (70.4 per cent) as sources. The sources of vitamin D used by the participants were sun exposure (57.2 per cent), vitamin D rich foods (51.2 per cent) and supplements (18.8 per cent). There was a significant association between overall awareness of vitamin D and intake of at least 2 sources of vitamin D in males (p<0.001) but not females (p=0.920). Although females had better awareness than males, sun exposure was much lower among females than males.
Conclusion
As supplementation was very low in both gender and since cultural factors promoting limited sun exposure among females are not easily modifiable, the current findings further highlight the critical importance of vitamin D supplementation, especially among females in Saudi Arabia.