Patterns of Dietary Supplements Use by Adult Outpatients Seeking Healthcare Services at Kericho County Referral Hospital, Kenya

Majority of the patients use various types of Dietary Supplements (DS) to manage diseases even though only a third of the DS users realize desirable effects. The documentation on the patterns of DS use by patients is limited in Kenya. There is reportedly high non-disclosure to the healthcare providers and high concomitant use of DS with drugs. Randomly selected 94 participants took part in this cross-sectional study. The aim of this study was to describe the patterns associated with the use of DS by the Adult outpatients. The DS used were single mineral (35.1%), single vitamin (14.9%), multivitamins (12.8%), multiple minerals (18.1%) and unspecified supplements (19.1%) majority of the respondents (63.7%) used any of the supplement on a daily basis and 20.4% used them occasionally. The cited reasons for DS use included to aid in the management of an existing illness (57.4%), recommendation by a health specialist (22%), desire to maintain general body wellness (15%), for bone health and mitigation of reproductive health problems (4% and 1% respectively). Furthermore, less than half (46.8%) of the DS users informed their healthcare provider (HCP) about their dietary supplement use with 65.1% of the DS users reporting usage of DS together with the prescribed medication. In conclusion, non-disclosure of DS use to the health care provider and concomitant use of DS with drugs were notably high hence need to ensure probing on DS use during history taking by health care providers and patient education on relevance of DS use were recommended.