Docs often fall short when prescribing new drugs
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Physicians frequently fail to provide patients with all the information they should have when they’re prescribed new medication, investigators in California report.
To evaluate the counseling provided by doctors, Dr. Derjung M. Tarn from the David Geffen School of Medicine in Los Angeles, and associates analyzed data from the Physician Patient Communication Project conducted at two health care systems in Sacramento in 1999.
Patients and physicians were surveyed, and the visits were audiotaped. Altogether, 44 physicians prescribed 244 new medications to 185 patients.
“Physicians stated the specific medication name for 74% of new prescriptions and explained the purpose of the medication for 87%,” Dr. Tarn and associates report in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Doctors explained how long the medication should be taken only 34 percent of the time, and described possible averse effects on only 35 percent of occasions.
The researchers graded physicians using a 5-point Medication Communication Index they created. The average score was 3.1, indicating that 62 percent of necessary elements of new medication prescribing were communicated.
This “spotty physician counseling” may be a factor in why people don’t comply with treatment, because they don’t understand the duration of treatment or proper dosing, or what to do if symptoms don’t improve.
The lack of instructions may have the greatest impact on patients unable to read medication container labels, the investigators add.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, September 25, 2006.
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