Health Care Provider's Knowledge, Perceptions, and Use of Probiotics and Prebiotics
- 1 April 2014
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) in Topics in Clinical Nutrition
- Vol. 29 (2), 139-149
- https://doi.org/10.1097/01.tin.0000445898.98017.eb
Abstract
Health care providers (N = 256) completed an online questionnaire to assess their knowledge, perceptions, and use of probiotics and prebiotics. Participants were familiar with probiotics (88%) but not with prebiotics (22%). Probiotics (62%) and prebiotics (55%) were perceived as being “somewhat” to “quite a bit” beneficial to health (μ = 3.6 ± 1.0 and 3.6 ± 1.2, respectively). Health care providers were “quite a bit” to “very much” willing to recommend probiotics (77%) and prebiotics (83%) if substantiated with literature. Despite this belief, they did not recommend probiotics (45%) or prebiotics (26%) to patients or read current research (75% and 76%, respectively).Keywords
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