Avoid conflict between column names ?

I just saw in the documentation that CI has dbprefix()

https://www.codeigniter.com/user_guide/d...s-manually

But i don't really get how it works. So i keep my database without changing the column name, but i define a dbprefix and then when i use CI Query Builder, i write the column name including the prefix as if it's native ? Or the dbprefix only applies on the table name and not on the column names ?