Use of Probiotics amongst General Medical Practitioners: An Assesment

A reasonable number of general medical practitioners may be familiar with the use of probiotics and some of them very clearly aware about probiotics research going on worldwide. However it was a speculation that the medical practitioners were yet to grasp the concept of probiotics either as a health promoting food or as a prophylactic drug. To determine the extent of awareness of the use of probiotics amongst the general medical practitioners in the suburban regions of Kolkata and Haldia, India, a survey was carried out. The survey involved the use of an open ended and a closed ended questionnaire and 225 medical practitioners participated in the study. It was found out that 96% of the practitioners who were in practice for an average of 17.9 years recommended probiotics on a regular basis in several ailments like gastrointestinal disorders (59%), allergy (28%), vaginal infections (10%) or even in some other cases (3%). Though most of the practitioners were of the belief that probiotics conferred health benefits (96%) nevertheless few had some skeptic beliefs (16%) that probiotics may cause secondary infections or even allergy (18.56%) or even said that their patients had a morbid fear of consuming live live microorganisms (5%). Most preferred formulation of probiotics though remained oral capsules or in the form of milk based products. The practitioners opinionated that availability of literature on probiotics and its research in terms of website materials, information on clinical trials, laboratory experiments conducted were scarcely available to them as well as their patients. A strong need for wider circulation of such information is the need of time the study revealed.