The Effects of Education and Folic Acid Distribution on the Long-Term Use of Folic Acid in College Women Aged 18-25

The purpose of this study was to determine if education and provision of a folic acid supplement would affect the folic acid intake of 18-25 year-old female college students.Appropriate informed consent was obtained from all students indicating an interest to participate. Women enrolled in various classes in the women's studies minor were used for this study.Professors gave classtime for this study to be conducted.A pretest posttest design was utilized with this convenience sample of 71 women. During the pretest period a survey to determine knowledge of folic acid and its affect on pregnancy outcomes was administered.Following this, a presentation on folic acid and its relation to pregnancy was given by the researcher and then a three months supply of multivitamins containing the required 400 micrograms of folic acid were distributed to each subject with directions to take one tablet per day.After three months a posttest survey was completed by the subjects. The posttest survey indicated an increase in daily supplemental folic acid intake from 15% of subjects in the pretest group to 59% in the postest group.Qualitative data was also gathered from those who did not continue use of the supplement to determine why. The most frequent answer was that they forgot to take the supplement. Knowledge of folic acid increased with 21% of pretest subjects providing correct survey answers to 90% of the posttest subjects answering correctly. 88% of all posttest subjects indicated that they planned to take a folic acid supplement throughout their childbearing years. This was a pilot study to determine if this population of college students was "forgotten" when it came to folic acid education. Many limitations of the study can be identified however the strong data gathered identifies a problem area requiring more reserch and intervention. This study was funded by a March of Dimes grant.