King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Inquiry. 2024 Jan-Dec;61:469580231224821. doi: 10.1177/00469580231224821.
Probiotics offer a variety of health benefits for the digestive system, atopic eczema, and immune system. Future healthcare providers should know more about probiotics to advise their patients and the general public appropriately. The purpose of the study was to evaluate health science students' knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) on the use of probiotics in various health conditions. A cross-sectional study was conducted among health college students using a self-administered online questionnaire. The study participants were selected using the convenience sample approach. statistical package for social science (SPSS) software was used to analyze the data. The Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney test were used to assess the statistical differences between sociodemographic data in knowledge, attitude, and practice variables. Of the 517 respondents, 56.3.0% of health science students had moderate knowledge of probiotics. More than one-third had positive attitudes, and 53.4.2% had positive practices. There was a significant difference in knowledge ( < .001), practice score ( < .001), and attitude score ( < .001) among different demographic data. Less than half of students said that their curricula did not include any information on probiotics. In addition, the majority of students agreed that probiotics were helpful for gastrointestinal health (87.3%), followed by immune health (73%), ulcerative colitis (61.9%), and irritable bowel (59.6%). The most information resources for probiotics were media (64%), and friends (60.7%). Health science students in Saudi had a fair level of knowledge of probiotics. Probiotics education in health science school curricula might increase students' understanding of the topic and improve probiotic prescribing in the future.
益生菌对消化系统、特应性皮炎和免疫系统具有多种健康益处。未来的医疗保健提供者应该更多地了解益生菌，以便为他们的患者和公众提供适当的建议。本研究的目的是评估健康科学专业学生对益生菌在各种健康状况下的应用的知识、态度和实践（KAP）。采用横断面研究方法，使用在线自填式问卷对健康学院的学生进行了研究。采用方便抽样法选择研究参与者。使用社会科学统计软件包（SPSS）分析数据。采用 Kruskal-Wallis 检验和 Mann-Whitney 检验评估知识、态度和实践变量中社会人口统计学数据的统计学差异。在 517 名应答者中，有 56.3.0%的健康科学专业学生对益生菌有中等程度的了解。超过三分之一的学生持积极态度，53.4.2%的学生有积极的实践行为。不同人口统计学数据的知识（ < .001）、实践评分（ < .001）和态度评分（ < .001）存在显著差异。不到一半的学生表示他们的课程没有包含任何关于益生菌的信息。此外，大多数学生认为益生菌对胃肠道健康有帮助（87.3%），其次是免疫健康（73%）、溃疡性结肠炎（61.9%）和肠易激综合征（59.6%）。益生菌的信息资源主要来自媒体（64%）和朋友（60.7%）。沙特的健康科学专业学生对益生菌有一定的了解。在健康科学学校课程中加入益生菌教育可能会提高学生对该主题的理解，并有助于未来改善益生菌的处方。
