• Emmanuella C Osuala, Boikhutso Tlou, and Elizabeth B Ojewole.
• Discipline of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Health Sciences, College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, P B X54001 Durban 4000 South Africa.
• Afr Health Sci. 2022 Mar 1; 22 (1): 681-690.

BackgroundDrug-food interactions can lead to adverse drug reactions and therapy failure which can potentially impact patient safety and therapy outcome.ObjectivesThis study assessed patients' knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding drug-food interactions.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among patients at three public hospitals in eThekwini, KwaZulu-Natal. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS® version 25. The association between demographic variables and patients' knowledge, attitudes and practices were assessed.ResultsOf the 342 patients, 70.5% were female, and the mean age was 42.87±0.89 years. Almost 50% of patients had secondary level education, and 64% were unemployed. About 52% of patients had high knowledge of drug-food interactions; however, only 30-50% of the patients could identify potential drug-food interactions of their drugs. More than half of the patients (51.5%) answered that they took multivitamin pills with medications and 61.7% responded they consulted healthcare professionals for drug-food interactions' information before taking new medications. Few patients (15.2%) had experienced drug-food interactions.ConclusionsOverall, patients had gaps in their knowledge and practices, and positive attitudes towards drug-food interactions. Many patients could not identify food items that can potentially interact with their drugs. It is important that education and medication counselling are provided to patients to prevent drug-food interactions, ensure optimal drug therapy and patient safety.© 2022 Osuala EC et al.

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