Assessment of Awareness about Medications Used for Weight Gain among Sudanese Women
Authors: Abuagla Mona Abdelgadir Ahmed 
Published: June 2022

Background: Body shape is an important thing, especially in some cultures for some societies such as Sudan, weight gain is sometimes linked to cultural heritage in some African countries, as in Sudan, for example, in Sudan, if a girl is skinny and she is about to get married we find that the mother She is very interested in gaining weight to become more beautiful as she thinks. But although these traditions have changed among some, there are many women who are interested in gaining weight [1] and this has led to some unreliable recipes for weight gain. Most of the participants (57.7%) were between the ages of 29-38 which is considered young age and 65.4% of them had either secondary or primary education, 53.8% of the participants were married who used prescriptions to gain weight. There are a number of sources from which prescription information is taken for weight gain drugs, and most of them are non-pharmaceutical, such as shops (42.3%), and they are unreliable sources from which these drugs can be taken.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the extent of Sudanese women's knowledge about the use of off label drugs, which those used in weight gain.

Specific Objectives was to know the types of medicine used and how they affect the body and how to get these drugs and make some advices.

Method used: The descriptive cross-sectional analytical study was conducted among 1100 women,) from November 2021 to March 2022( but the analysis targeted only 260 who were using medicine to gain weight or had used them before. The questionnaire included the demographic information of the participants, such as age, education level, and place of residence. It also contained their information about the types of medicine used, how to purchase them and their effects ., then the data was analyzed using the SPSS program and placed in the tables.

Sampling: The questionnaire targeted all adults women present in some of the wedding houses in Omdurman, Khartoum State, and those who did not agree to filling out the questionnaire were excluded. Problem Statement: There are very few studies published on this subject, and because there is a problem in the illegal use of these medicine and their spread, the attempt in this study is to shed light so that officials are alerted, it was necessary to highlight it in order to alert the officials to this problem.

Hypotheses: Based on my observation of the rapid increase in weight for some young women and girls, and as I hear a lot about the complications of drugs used to gain weight, I expected that many women do not know much about these drugs and just want to reach their goal, which is weight gain.

Setting: Omdurman is the second largest city in Sudan and constitutes the large part of the state of Khartoum, the capital of the country. It is located along the west bank of the Nile and the White Nile opposite the city of Khartoum and the city of Khartoum Bahri, with a population of about 1 million people (July 2001 AD). It has an area of ​​about 4,948 square kilometers [2].

Participants: The number of women who agreed to participate in the questionnaire was 1100, and the number of those who were currently using medicine or had previously used was 260, and they are the ones included in the analysis in this study.