Abstract: Bosnian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences ISSN: 1512-8601 (Print) | ISSN: 1840-4812 (Online) | OPEN ACCESS Journal Impact Factor® (2020): 3.36 CiteScore® (2020): 4.0 www.bjbms.org | blog.bjbms.org The BJBMS publishes an “Advanced online” manuscript format as a free service to authors in order to expedite the dissemination of scientific findings to the research community as soon as possible after acceptance following peer review and corresponding modification (where appropriate). An “Advanced online” manuscript is published online prior to copyediting, formatting for publication and author proofing, but is nonetheless fully citable through its Digital Object Identifier (doi®). Nevertheless, this “Advanced online” version is NOT the final version of the manuscript. When the final version of this paper is published within a definitive issue of the journal with copyediting, full pagination, etc. the new final version will be accessible through the same doi and this "Advanced online" version of the paper will disappear. RESEARCH ARTICLE NEW AND EMERGING MEDICAL ENTITIES Nimer, et al.: Dietary supplements and COVID-19 The impact of vitamin and mineral supplements usage prior to COVID-19 infection on disease severity and hospitalization Refat Nimer1*, Omar Khabour1, Samer Swedan1, Hassan Kofahi1 1Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan *Corresponding author: Refat Nimer, PhD, Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 3030, Irbid 22110, Jordan E-mail: rmnimer@just.edu.jo DOI: https://doi.org/10.17305/bjbms.2021.7009 Submitted: 31 January 2022/Accepted: 19 February 2022/ Published online: 28 February 2022 Conflict of interests: Authors declare no conflict of interests. Funding: This study is supported by the deanship of research at Jordan University of Science and Technology (grant number 20210173). License: © The Author(s) (2022). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Intenational License. 1 ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global public health emergency. Nutritional status is suggested to be related to the severity of COVID-19 infection. Herein, we aimed to explore the impact of using vitamin and mineral supplements prior to COVID-19 infection on disease severity and hospitalization. In addition, the prior use of aspirin as an anticoagulant on the disease severity was investigated. A cross-sectional, self-administered survey was conducted between March and July 2021. Recovered COVID-19 individuals (age ≥ 18 years, n = 2148) were recruited in the study. A multivariate logistic regression was used to evaluate the associations of supplements and aspirin use with COVID-19 disease severity and hospitalization status. Among the participants, 12.1% reported symptoms consistent with severe COVID-19, and 10.2% were hospitalized due to COVID-19. After adjustment for confounding variables (age, gender, BMI, cigarette smoking status, and the number of comorbidities), the multivariate logistic regression model showed that the consumption of vitamin D supplements prior to COVID-19 infection was associated with a significant decrease in disease severity (OR = 0.68, 95% CI 0.50 - 0.92; P = 0.01), and a lower risk of hospitalization (OR = 0.64, 95% CI 0.45 - 0.89; P = 0.01). On the other hand, there were no significant differences in the frequencies of severe illness and hospitalizations with the consumption..