Awareness and consumption pattern of energy drinks among Bahraini youth

الملخص EN

Objective : To evaluate various factors affecting energy drink consumption among Bahraini youth (from the ages of 15 through 24 years old).

Moreover, this study aimed to assess the participant's level of knowledge about the contents of energy drinks.

Design : A cross-sectional study Setting : Kingdom of Bahrain Methods : The cross-sectional study was conducted on a randomly selected sample of 728 individuals (301 males and 427 females) from the local Bahraini population.

Data collection was conducted through a questionnaire via WhatsApp during the period of October 2017 to May 2018.

Results : Of the total youth sample, only 16% of respondents were energy drink consumers, 14% had previously consumed them, while the majority had never consumed energy drinks (70%).

Reasons for not consuming or stopped consuming were that young energy drink consumers had prior knowledge about its harmful effects (38.2%), no particular reason (21.9%), or disliked its taste (17.0%), with the remaining reasons being trivial.

The main reasons cited for consuming energy drinks were reducing fatigue (24.4%), maintaining alertness (20.8%), enhancing academic performance (11.8%), and for leisure purposes (11.3%).

Consumers cited family and friend's recommendation (54.7%), commercial advertisements (15.4%) and aggressive marketing strategies (13.7%) as main sources for being introduced to energy drinks.

Furthermore, taste (41.6%), price (18.0%), and brand popularity (10.1%) were reported to influence the choice of energy drinks among the young patrons.

As for the main adverse effects of energy drink consumption, 13.0% of consumers reported no effects, while 11.6% experienced an increase in heart rate.

Conclusion : Overall, the prevalence of energy drink use among Bahraini youth consumers was low.

Nevertheless, the results highlight the need for rigorous education regarding use of energy drinks and its probable negative effects on adolescents and young adults.