Relations between occurrence of the risk of food-drug interactions and patients' socio-demographic characteristics and selected nutrition habits

Abstract

The objective of the study was to investigate the patients' exposure to food-drug interactions, and to analyse the main factors leading to a risk of interactions in the examined patients. A high (62.4%) risk of food-drug interactions incidence, which may cause various complications in therapy, was found in the study. The majority of patients (52.8%) were not aware that the timing of drug intake in relation to meals may affect treatment. High exposure to food-drug interactions in patients results generally from their lack of awareness of such interactions and of their effects. The results of the study show that educating patients, physicians, dieticians and nurses on the impact of food on the effects of drugs is necessary to mitigate pharmacotherapy complications. © Copyright by Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.