Artikel
Questioning of physicians about their drug prescribing behaviour
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Veröffentlicht: | 30. September 2004 |
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Gliederung
Text
Context
At the beginning of the year 2004 there were changes of drug price ordinance and in non-ethical market (OTC-drugs).
Aim
To understand better the range of factors that influence the decision-making process in drug prescribing.
Material and Methods
In February of 2004 it was carried out a written survey among 266 practices of Saxony, selected purposively from all in 2003 contacted practices by pharmacological advisory service of AOK Sachsen. Questionnaire contains 16 questions, among this thirteen closed-ended questions.
Results
The participation rate was 55%. The most frequently cited influences of the prescribing process were physicians personal clinical experiences with drugs and the national prescribing guidelines.
Physicians quality circles were the most frequently used information source to solve difficult therapeutic questions followed by information of pharmaceutical industry and the recommendations of drug commission of the German medical profession. Cost of drugs are also a deciding factor, but not so important.
In case of new drugs we identified three domains that physicians considered in evaluating new drugs: treatment success, side effect profile and cost.
Only 2% of the physicians believe that new drugs have a greater therapeutic impact and prefer these therefore. A problem is the lack of information of physicians about the expenditure situation of their regionally association of SHI-Accredited physicians.
Conclusion
Results of the survey have implications for co-operation between AOK Sachsen and the physicians. The benefit of independent scientific sources of information has to mediate better.
Conflict of interest: The authors have no financial interests to disclose.