CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 91Complementary and Alternative Medicine StudiesNutrition and Health StudiesPhytochemistry Medicinal Plant Applications

Public awareness, patterns of use and attitudes toward natural health products in Kuwait: a cross-sectional survey

Open access
Awad, Abdelmoneim, Al-Shaye, Dana·2014·BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
DOI 10.1186/1472-6882-14-105PMC PMC3999934
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There has been a global rise in the use of natural health products (NHPs). Proper regulation of NHPs is pivotal to ensure good quality control standards, enhance consumers' safety and facilitate their integration into modern healthcare systems. There is scarcity of published data on the prevalence of NHPs usage among the general Kuwaiti population. Hence, this study was designed to determine awareness, patterns of use, general attitude and information requirements about NHPs among the public in Kuwait. METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was performed using a pretested self-administered questionnaire on a sample of 1300 Kuwaiti individuals, selected from six governorates in Kuwait using a multistage stratified clustered sampling. Descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used in data analysis. RESULTS: The response rate was 90.2%. NHPs were thought to be herbal remedies by most of participants (63.5%), followed by vitamins/minerals (40.5%), traditional medicines (21.1%), probiotics (14.9%), amino acids and essential fatty acids (7.2%), and homeopathic medicines (5.6%). NHPs usage was reported by 71.4% (95% CI: 68.8-74.0%) of respondents, and mostly associated with females (OR: 1.90; 95% CI: 1.44-2.51). Herbal remedies were the most commonly used (41.3%; 95% CI: 38.5-44.2%). The most common reasons for using NHPs were to promote and maintain health and to prevent illness and build immune system. Family members and/or friends and mass media were the main sources for providing information about NHPs. About 18% of consumers have experienced a side effect due to using a NHP. Attitudes toward NHPs were generally positive; with more than 75% of participants believing that the Ministry of Health in Kuwait should regulate the claims made by the manufacturers of NHPs and it is important to talk to a medical doctor or a pharmacist prior to using NHPs. Most of the respondents showed increased interest to acquire knowledge about different types of information related to NHPs. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of use of NHPs among Kuwaiti population is high. The present findings have major public health policy implications for Kuwait. Therefore, there is an apparent need to establish effective health education programs and implement better and more regulated NHPs use policies in Kuwait.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/1472-6882-14-105

Cites

38 of 38 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • AI-driven predictive analytics tools help security agencies better manage resources, proactively minimize risks, and improve situational awareness.

    “These tools help security agencies better manage resources, proactively minimize risks, and improve situational awareness by identifying trends and abnormalities in data.”

    From Enhancing Operational Effectiveness in Security and Defence within the UAE: The Strategic Role of Artificial Intelligence (2025) · cites this paper as Awad, Al-Shaye, & Dana, 2014

    The Background and Discussion concern public use and regulation of natural health products in Kuwait; the Methods describe survey analysis. Searches for AI-driven predictive analytics, security agencies, resource management, and situational awareness found no passage addressing the claim. (LLM, conf=0.78)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Awad, A., & Al-Shaye, D.
Affiliations
  • Kuwait University (KW)
  • Ministry of Health (KW)
Corresponding author
Awad, Abdelmoneim
ORCID
Awad, Abdelmoneim
Venue
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2014-03-19
Volume
14
Issue
1
Pages
105-105
ISSN
1472-6882 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/1472-6882-14-105
PMC
PMC3999934
OpenAlex
W2034869259
Cited by
89
References
38
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 1
FWCI
12.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Complementary and alternative medicine › Complementary and Alternative Medicine Studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Nutrition and Health Studies
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Phytochemistry Medicinal Plant Applications
Keywords
natural health products, herbal medicine, consumer awareness, usage patterns, health education, adverse effects, vitamins and minerals, probiotics, homeopathy, traditional medicine, Kuwaiti population, health policy, information sources, consumer safety, health claims regulation, pharmacist counseling, health education intervention
MeSH terms
Adult, Awareness, Biological Products, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Health, Humans, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Kuwait, Male, Materia Medica, Medicine, Traditional, Middle Aged, Minerals, Surveys and Questionnaires, Vitamins, Dietary Supplements, Probiotics, Young Adult, Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review