Health Care Provider's Knowledge, Perceptions, and Use of Probiotics and Prebiotics

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 (mu = 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).