ZAHRAA AMER HASHIM, MARWA H MOHAMMED, RADHWAN NİDAL AL ZIDAN, HİBA RADHWAN TAWFEEQ
Acta Pharmaceutica Sciencia - 2025;63(2):352-366
Objective: This study aimed to investigate healthcare providers’ (HCPs) knowledge and practice toward probiotics. Method: This cross-sectional study involved 294 randomly targeted pharmacists, physicians, and dentists in different health care settings (Mosul/Iraq) using an online questionnaire forum from April 2023 to July 2023. The questionnaire was divided into four main branches; demographic characteristics, familiarity, and experience, probiotic use perception and barriers against prescribing probiotics. Results: The majority (92.9%) of participants were aware of the definition of probiotics, over 77% were mindful of probiotics gastrointestinal health-effectiveness while 33.3% were aware of their dental usefulness. Around 26.8% indicated they would recommend probiotics to their patients, 4.0% refused to advise patients of using probiotics and 7.8% preferred to prescribe antibiotics over probiotics. The main reason of not prescribing probiotics was unfamiliarity with the availability of probiotics products (22.1%). The majority of HCPs (72.4%) showed their interest in broadening their knowledge about pre- and probiotics. Conclusion: This study showed that participants have insufficient knowledge to make them confident of prescribing probiotics. Tutoring HCPs regarding the use of probiotics is substantial to boost patients’ wellbeing.
