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Is physician adherence to prescription guidelines a general trait of health care practices or dependent on drug type?—A multilevel logistic regression analysis in South Sweden
Author(s) -
Ohlsson Henrik,
Merlo Juan
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.023
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1099-1557
pISSN - 1053-8569
DOI - 10.1002/pds.1767
Subject(s) - medicine , medical prescription , logistic regression , drug , psychological intervention , family medicine , pharmacoepidemiology , health care , pharmacology , psychiatry , economics , economic growth
Purpose Therapeutic traditions at health care practices (HCPs) influence physicians' adherence to prescription guidelines for specific drugs, however, it is not known if such traditions affect all kinds of prescriptions or only specific types of drug. Our goal was to determine whether adherence to prescription guidelines is a common trait of HCPs or dependent on drug type. Methods We fitted separate multi‐level logistic regression models to all patients in the Skåne region who received a prescription for a statin drug (ATC: C10AA, n = 6232), an agent acting on the renin‐angiotensin system (ATC: C09, n = 7222) or a proton pump inhibitor (ATC: A02BC, n = 11 563) at 198 HCPs from July 2006 to December 2006. Results There was a high clustering of adherence to prescription guidelines at HCPs for the different drug types (MOR agents acting on the renin‐angiotensin system = 4.72 [95% CI: 3.90–5.92], MOR Statins = 2.71 [95% CI: 2.23–3.39] and MOR Proton pump inhibitors = 2.16 [95% CI: 1.95–2.45]). Compared with HCPs with low adherence to guidelines in two drug types, those HCPs with the highest level of adherence for these two drug types also showed a higher probability of adherence for the third drug type. Conclusion Physicians' decisions to follow prescription guidelines seem to be influenced by therapeutic traditions at the HCP. Moreover, these therapeutic traditions seem to affect all kinds of prescriptions. This information can be used as basis for interventions to support rational and cost‐effective medication use. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.