The effect of industry-independent drug information on the prescribing of benzodiazepines in general practice

Abstract

In order to measure the effect of industry-independent information on the prescribing of benzodiazepines in general practice, 128 primary practitioners were randomly allocated to three intervention groups after stratification by year of graduation. One third of the participating physicians were forwarded written information about the indications and limitations of benzodiazepines, another third received both written and oral information, and the remaining third (the control group) obtained no information at all. A comparison of the number of benzodiazepines prescribed per 100 patient contacts with prescription before and after the intervention showed an average decrease of 3% in the control group, of 14% in physicians who received only written information, and of 24% in physicians who were given additional oral information. Post hoc pair-wise comparisons revealed a significant difference at the 1% level in the number of benzodiazepines prescribed between physicians who received both written and oral information and the control group. A follow-up survey conducted 4 weeks after the intervention showed that the oral information campaign positively affected physicians' attitudes about the value of oral drug information from an industry-independent source.

Information from Pharmaceutical Companies and the Quality, Quantity, and Cost of Physicians' Prescribing: A Systematic Review

“…Following application of inclusion/exclusion criteria and quality appraisal, 58 studies were included in the review (52 published in journals [25]–[33],[35]–[77], three reports [78]–[80], one dissertation [34], one conference presentation [81], and one conference poster [82] (Figure 1). Of these 58, 29 studies came from database searches [25]–[31],[33],[35]–[38],[41],[44],[55],[56],[59]–[62],[66]–[68],[70]–[72],[74],[76],[77], 22 studies came from reference lists [32],[39],[40],[46]–[54],[58],[63]–[65],[69],[73],[75],[78],[79], five studies came from experts in the field [34],[43],[57],[81],[82], and two from email lists [45],[80]. These 58 studies included 87 units of analysis.…”

“…51 studies [25]–[54],[56]–[60],[62],[63],[65],[67]–[70],[72],[73],[75]–[81] measured prescribing frequency as market share, intention to prescribe, prescription sales, formulary requests, as well as number of prescriptions (63 units of analysis) (Table 8). Below we report separately the results of studies of information delivered with versus without conventional promotion.…”

“…Of the remaining 11, six studies had mixed results: finding a significant association with more frequent prescribing for some measures but no significant association for others [27],[42],[62],[69],[73],[81]. Five did not detect any significant relationship [31],[52],[68],[72],[77]. One study did not use statistical tests for associations.…”

A randomised controlled trial of clinical outreach education to rationalise antibiotic prescribing for acute dental pain in the primary care setting

“…[12][13][14]16,17,23,24 However, this is the first study, to our knowledge, to assess the effect of educational outreach visits on prescribing by GDPs. A significant reduction in the number of antibiotic prescriptions issued by dentists in the intervention group compared to dentists in the control and guideline groups was obtained following educational outreach visits by a pharmacist.…”

Wann lohnt es, eine medizinische Überversorgung abzubauen?

“…Die Anwendungsbeispiele könnten ferner dahingehend kritisiert werden, dass zur Abschätzung der QVM-Wirksamkeit Studien [18,19] herangezogen wurden, die zu alt und für Antihypertonika nicht relevant wären. Jedoch ist die den Studien entnommene Wirksamkeit eher klein verglichen mit dem Durchschnitt anderer Studien: Die absolute Complianceverbesserung sowohl der Pharmakotherapieberatung (30% x 24% = 7%) als auch des Feedbacks (30% x 8,5% = 3%) ist geringer als die einer kürzlich publizierten systematischen Übersicht [20].…”