Doctors' attitudes about prescribing and knowledge of the costs of common medications.
Affiliation
Department of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, St Vincent's University, Hospital, Dublin 4, Ireland.Issue Date
2012-02-01T10:34:22ZMeSH
*Attitude of Health PersonnelClinical Competence/*statistics & numerical data
Health Care Costs
Health Care Surveys
*Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Hospitals, Teaching/*statistics & numerical data
Humans
Ireland
Physician's Practice Patterns/*statistics & numerical data
Prescription Drugs/*economics
Questionnaires
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Ir J Med Sci. 2009 Sep;178(3):277-80. Epub 2009 Feb 17.Journal
Irish journal of medical scienceDOI
10.1007/s11845-009-0276-xPubMed ID
19221833Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Compliance with medical therapy may be compromised because of the affordability of medications. Inadequate physician knowledge of drug costs may unwittingly contribute to this problem. METHODS: We measured attitudes about prescribing and knowledge of medication costs by written survey of medical and surgical non consultant hospital doctors and consultants in two University teaching hospitals (n = 102). Sixty-eight percent felt the cost of medicines was an important consideration in the prescribing decision, however, 88% often felt unaware of the actual costs. Only 33% had easy access to drug cost data, and only 3% had been formally educated about drug costs. Doctors' estimates of the cost of a supply of ten commonly used medications were accurate in only 12% of cases, too low for 50%, and too high for 38%. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions are needed to educate doctors about drug costs and provide them with reliable, easily accessible cost information in real-world practice.Language
engISSN
1863-4362 (Electronic)0021-1265 (Linking)
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1007/s11845-009-0276-x