| Dietary modulation of the gut microbiota through probiotics and prebiotics may be beneficial for health. Despite their potential importance, no studies have determined knowledge, use and perceptions of probiotics and prebiotics in healthcare providers. In the present study, an online questionnaire was completed to assess these parameters in healthcare providers at a large, urban medical center (n=256). Most of the participants were White (77%), female (74%), and nurses (49%) or physicians (39%). Participants were familiar with probiotics (97%), but not familiar with prebiotics (28%). Most of the participants had not read any recent peer-reviewed publications on probiotics (75%) or prebiotics (76%), If substantiated by peer-reviewed literature, healthcare providers would be "quite a bit" to "very much" willing to recommend probiotics (77%) and prebiotics (83%). Despite believing that probiotics and prebiotics are beneficial to overall health (62% and 55%, respectively), the majority of healthcare providers had never recommended probiotics (55%) or prebiotics (74%) to patients. A total of 64% of healthcare providers personally consume probiotics and 34% consume prebiotics, with a significant difference in probiotic and prebiotic recommendations based on personal consumption (P = 0.001; P = 0.001, respectively). In conclusion, healthcare providers are familiar with probiotics, but not prebiotics, and believe they are beneficial to overall health; however, they do not follow the current literature or frequently recommend them to patients. |
