Patient-Reported Probiotic Use During Periodontal Therapy in Periodontitis

Most previous studies have evaluated standardized probiotic regimens as adjuncts to NSPT (Ausenda et al., 2023; Hardan et al., 2022; Mauriello et al., 2025). Less is known about how real-world probiotic product use during periodontal care relates simultaneously to clinical outcomes, OHRQoL and patient-level behavioral factors such as knowledge, acceptance, previous recommendation and product/form preferences. Therefore, the aim of this prospective observational study was to compare periodontal clinical and OHRQoL outcomes at 1 and 3 months after NSPT between patients with Stage III Grade B periodontitis who reported probiotic supplement or commercially labelled probiotic product use and those who reported no such use. A secondary aim was to evaluate whether pre-treatment probiotic knowledge/familiarity, attitudes, previous probiotic recommendation, acceptance profile and product/form preferences were associated with reported probiotic product use. This study hypothesized that reported probiotic product use during the NSPT period would be associated with lower short-term periodontal burden and better OHRQoL outcomes, and that pre-treatment probiotic familiarity and acceptance would be associated with reported use.