Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Perceived threats of vision impairment and its effect on consumption pattern of dietary supplement of lutein and zeaxanthin

Frank FC Pan¹ , Chen Sen-Chi², Chao Shun-Jung³

¹Department of Hospitality and Department of Pharmacy, Tajen University, Pingtung, Taiwan; ²CEO, Pao-Chien Hospital, Pingtung, Taiwan; ³President, Puudeng Pharmaceutical Co. New Taipei City, Taiwan.

For correspondence:- Frank Pan Email: profpan900@gmail.com Tel:+86932808695

Accepted: 24 November 2019 Published: 31 December 2019

Citation: Pan FF, Sen-Chi C, Shun-Jung C. Perceived threats of vision impairment and its effect on consumption pattern of dietary supplement of lutein and zeaxanthin. Trop J Pharm Res 2019; 18(12):2669-2677 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v18i12.27

© 2019 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To explore perceived threats of vision impairment as well as the perceived benefits and barriers of lutein-containing supplements using a health belief model (HBM), and also to assess how these may affect dietary supplement consumption behaviours.

Methods: A structured questionnaire was developed on HBM through a focus group interview to gather information from 1,075 drugstore customers in Taiwan. Respondents were 55.16 % female, 64.47 % married, 53.12 % aged between 31 and 50 years, and 91 % with at least a high school education.

Results: Perceived severity was much higher that perceived susceptibility. Susceptibility was the most stable construct. Occupation, residence area, and workplace were the top three factors differentiating the variance in HBM constructs. Perceived benefits appeared as the most powerful predictor, followed by perceived barriers. HBM predictors jointly explained 21.9 % of the variance in lutein- and zeaxanthin-taking behaviour. Moderating effects of health-related information were not significant.

Conclusion: HBM is useful to understand this behaviour. Consumer behaviour is mainly affected by perceived benefits, and not the threat of vision impairment. Since people ignore the possibility of suffering severe vision impairment, more health education is required.

Keywords: Lutein, Zeaxanthin, Macular degeneration (AMD), Health belief model, Dietary supplement