ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutritional Epidemiology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1663562
Exploring motivations, information behavior, perceptions, and intentions among dietary supplement users: A cross-sectional survey study in Germany
Provisionally accepted
Robin Janzik*
Johanna GeppertPatricia MüllerInka NotzHenri ObstfeldBianca RothAnna-Maria Volpers
Gaby-Fleur Prof. Dr. Boel- Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), Berlin, Germany
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: The use of vitamins, minerals, or botanicals via dietary supplements (DS) is increasing in the general population despite unclear benefits and the potential risks they pose to otherwise healthy individuals. A number of studies have made attempts to explain past use based on isolated individual (e.g., age), motivational (e.g., maintenance of health), informational (e.g., labeling), or perceptual (e.g., risks and benefits) variables. However, little research has examined explaining factors comprehensively among users, or explored future intentions to expand use beyond one's current consumption. Methods: This study aimed to address these gaps by analyzing nationally representative survey data from Germany (N = 1,071). Participants were quota-sampled based on gender and age groups, educational levels, and federal states. Identifying DS users was based on the self-reported intake of 61 different substances, while measurements included items on health-related characteristics as well as DS-related motivations, information behavior, perceptions, attitudes, and intentions. Results: Consistent with prior research, DS users (76.9%, n = 824) tended to be female, younger, more health-conscious, and health-literate compared to non-users. Analysis of user data suggested five distinct motivational factors: preventive, social, vulnerable, unhealthful, and situational. Users reported to receive information about DS from different sources only rarely and to feel only moderately informed. Further, users' perceived risk and benefit of using DS were inversely related and associated with their general attitude towards the substances. Intentions to expand use were predicted by younger age, preventive as well as social motivations, and benefit perceptions. Conclusion: These results indicate that both past and future DS use is associated with diverse reasoning and own, primarily positive, judgements, potentially rooted in a confounding of perceived risk and benefit. Science communicators may build on these results by considering the conditions in which decisions for DS use are made.
Keywords: Dietary Supplements, Motivation, information behavior, Risk Perception, Benefit perception, future use intention, Survey study
Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 16 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Janzik, Geppert, Müller, Notz, Obstfeld, Roth, Volpers and Prof. Dr. Boel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Robin Janzik, robin.janzik@bfr.bund.de
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.