Assessment of Awareness and Opinion: Grape Seed Extract’s Health Benefits

Abstract

Objective To determine pharmacy students’ opinion and knowledge of the role and overall health benefits of dietary and herbal supplements such as grape seed extract. Methods Forty-two pharmacy school students were asked to complete an online survey to assess their opinion and knowledge of the overall health benefits of grape seed extract using Likert-scale type questions. Results Respondents were given an optional survey which received a 100% response rate. The students were asked nine-demographic questions, four-general lifestyle opinion questions, and five-opinion questions on grape seed extract and its overall health benefits. When investigating students’ responses, there was a significant variation between those that agreed to feeling comfortable enough to recommend grape seed extract to a patient with high blood pressure and agreeing to not looking in research evidence to make themselves aware of the benefit of grape seed extract in lowering blood pressure (p value=0.021). The scores of the five knowledge questions asked to the participants averaged 63.3%, with most of the students scoring below average (n=22, 52.4%). The question that received the highest rate of correct answers was question #2 that states that grape seed extract can improve blood flow (n=29, 69%). When investigating significance in response to blood-related questions (Q# 1,2,5) vs other organ-related questions (Q# 3,4), the results were significant (p value<0.001). Conclusion Our results indicated that pharmacy students have a split general lifestyle opinion (n=22, 50%) when believing that grape seed extract had many benefits in lowering blood pressure. This study also indicated that first-year pharmacy students have limited knowledge of the application of grape seed extract in hypertension with an average passing score of 63.3% and over half (52.4%) of the students scoring below average. Results from this study additionally showed that demographic factors such as age, residence prior to attending pharmacy school and number of years worked prior to pharmacy school were significant in predicting the knowledge and opinion of grape seed extract. This supports the need to integrate more herbal product education within our pharmacy school modules. As patients become more interested in natural product therapies, it is the job of pharmacy students and pharmacists to educate themselves so they can aid in optimal care of all patients.