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Nour Amin Elsahoryi,1 Hadil Shafee Subih,2 Fadwa Hammouh,3 Fwziah Jammal Hammad2 1Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, The University of Petra, Jordan; 2Department of Nutrition and Food Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid Jordan; 3Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Madaba, Madaba, JordanCorrespondence: Nour Amin Elsahoryi, Email nour.elsahoryi@uop.edu.joAim: This study aimed to determine the current stage of change (SOG) toward seven healthy eating behaviors and two healthy lifestyle behaviors related to blood pressure (BP) control. The lifestyle behaviors included smoking Behavior and practicing regular exercise, while the dietary behaviors included the DASH diet guidelines.Methods: A total of 1109 outpatients participated in this cross-sectional study that was conducted between 2021 and 2022 in Jordan. A staging algorithm assessed SOG for several BP control-related behaviors for diagnosed hypertension patients. Data were collected by a structured interview-based questionnaire.Results: There was a high degree of maintenance toward consuming diets with high grains, fruit, vegetables, meat, and poultry, less saturated fat, and more low-fat dairy products. More than half of the participants were in the pre-action stage for quitting smoking, practicing physical exercise, and consuming sweets and added sugars. Significant associations were observed between the degree of maintenance for several behaviors (p < 0.01). Age, income, education level, disease duration, and nutrition consultation availability were the most related factors to the SOG of the studied behaviors (p < 0.01).Conclusion: Patients with hypertension in Jordan are still in the pre-action stages for quitting smoking, practicing physical exercise, and consuming 5 servings of refined sweets and added sugars weekly. The current outcome suggests a need for nutritional counseling, education, and interventions to raise awareness of lifestyle factors influencing BP among hypertension patients.Keywords: hypertension, stage of change, SOG, health behavior

Dietary supplements (DSs) intake has been increasing worldwide despite no consensus evidence for the efficacy and safety of disease prevention, control, or treatment in nutrient-replete populations. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of DSs use, knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) and associated factors among university students in Jordan. A national cross-sectional study was carried over across universities in Jordan. Participants completed a valid and reliable online questionnaire (Cronbach's alpha = 0.802 and correlation coefficients between 0.72 and 0.26). Univariate analyses were used to determine the relationship between variables. Multivariable regression was carried out to identify significant factors contributing DSs usage. A total of 448 university students completed the study (73.7% females). More than half of the students used DSs (60.9%), with single-nutrient ingredient supplements being the most commonly used type. The primary motivators were maintaining health and most students reported no side effects associated with consumption. The results revealed poor knowledge, a negative attitude towards DSs usage among all participants, even non-users, and high-risk practices among the DSs users. Normal weight and overweight individuals were more likely to use DSs (OR:2.88, 95%CI:1.61-5.16, OR:1.95, 95%CI:1.01-3.79, respectively). Low and medium-family income categories were more likely to use DSs than those in the high-income category (OR: 0.04, 95%CI: 0.02-0.07, OR: 0.06, 95CI:0.03-0.11, respectively). Undergraduate students were more likely to use DSs than postgraduate students (OR:5.56, 95%CI:3.19-9.69). In this study, a high prevalence of DSs use was highlighted. The results suggest that nutrition education is required to improve awareness of DSs and to promote safe practices., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Background: Raising the knowledge level though education for a celiac disease patient's parents could improve the parent's adherence and practice and consequently recover the patient's adherence and symptoms and increase the patient's compliance., Aim: The present study was aimed at assessing the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of parents who have children with celiac disease aged from 2 to 15 years old and the change in self-reported patient's adherence pre-/posteducational intervention., Method: This intervention study was designed as a quasiexperiment with evaluation pre-/post intervention analyses. Two educational sessions were carried for the parents of CD patients. A reliable and valid questionnaire was used to assess all independent variables pre-/post intervention. The parents were asked to complete the questionnaire pre and post the education sessions. The time between the sessions was two weeks., Results: 100 parents were recruited, and 40 parents participated and completed the study. Baseline parent's knowledge was significantly associated with the source of information ( p value = 0.02), while the patient's adherence was associated with the onset of disease ( p value = 0.04). There were significant differences in the parent's KAP and patient's adherence between pre- and posteducational intervention ( p value was ≤0.001, for all variables)., Conclusion: Based on the results, this study suggested that the educational intervention increased the parent's KAP and improved the patient's adherence to the gluten-free diet significantly, which may lead to improvement in the celiac disease patients' health outcomes., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Nour Amin Elsahoryi et al.)