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Knowledge, Use and Perceptions of Probiotics and Prebiotics in Medical Center Healthcare Providers
Author(s) -
Rasmussen Heather,
Oliver Laura,
Gregoire Mary,
Chen Yimin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.lb405
Subject(s) - prebiotic , medicine , health care , probiotic , family medicine , food science , chemistry , biology , bacteria , economics , genetics , economic growth
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 (77%) or prebiotics (79%). If substantiated by peer‐reviewed literature, healthcare providers would be “quite a bit” to “very much” willing to recommend probiotics (53%) and prebiotics (78%). Despite believing that probiotics and prebiotics are beneficial to overall health (63% and 55%, respectively), the majority of healthcare providers had never recommended probiotics (57%) or prebiotics (75%) to patients. A total of 62% of healthcare providers personally consume probiotics and 31% consume prebiotics, with a significant difference in probiotic and prebiotic recommendations for patient use 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.