Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Knowledge Levels Of College Students Concerning Folic Acid, Lesa Faye Ferguson

MSN Research Projects

Neural tube defects (NTDs) are among the most serious birth defects affecting approximately 4,000 pregnancies in the United States each year. More than one third of these pregnancies are spontaneously aborted. Thus, about 2,500 infants per year are born with an NTD. Research spanning two decades has shown that women who consume folic acid- containing supplements have 50% to 75% fewer infants with NTDs than women who do not consume folic acid supplements. Despite the empirical evidence in the literature, the message about folic acid is not getting across to the general public. This quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study examined the impact …