An Evaluation of Awareness, Knowledge, and Use of Folic Acid and Dietary Folate Intake among Non-Pregnant Women of Childbearing Age and Pregnant Women: A Cross-Sectional Study from Turkey

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to evaluate awareness, knowledge, and use of folic acid and dietary folate intake among non-pregnant women of childbearing age and pregnant women. A cross-sectional study was completed with 1442 women (1106 non-pregnant and 336 pregnant) in Ankara, Turkey. The individuals’ awareness, knowledge, and use of folic acid were questioned and food consumption were taken. More than two-thirds of the non-pregnant and pregnant women had heard of folic acid (77.2% and 89.0%, respectively). The pregnant women (53.9%) knew more that folic acid should be used before conception in order to prevent congenital anomalies than non-pregnant women (41.4%). It was found that 70.2% of the pregnant women and only 15.1% of the non-pregnant women used folic acid supplementation. The pregnant women (1368.4 mcg; 330.4 mcg) significantly had higher folic acid and dietary folate intake than non-pregnant women (29.6 mcg; 289.3 mcg) (p < .01). Despite many public health campaigns, awareness, knowledge, and appropriate use of folic acid are still inadequate and not at the desired level in women of childbearing age.

KEYWORDS:

• Folic acid
• awareness
• knowledge
• dietary folate intake

Acknowledgments

None of the authors had a personal or financial conflict of interest. All authors contributed to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis, and interpretation of data; to draft the article or revise it critically for important intellectual content; and approved the final version to be published. We thank all of the participants who devoted their time to participate in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Support

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.