Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2005 Oct 31;36(7):367-72.
doi: 10.1157/13080299.

[Efficacy of educational sessions to modify the prescription of new drugs]

[Article in Spanish]
T Molina López  1 , J C Domínguez Camacho, J M Santos Lozano, A Carbonell Carrillo, J Sánchez Acevedo, M L Paz León
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

[Efficacy of educational sessions to modify the prescription of new drugs]

[Article in Spanish]
T Molina López et al. Aten Primaria. .

Abstract
in English, Spanish

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of an educational intervention to minimise the prescription of those new medicines whose therapeutic effects are of little benefit.

Design: Controlled and randomised experimental study.

Setting: 27 health centres in the province of Sevilla, Spain.

Participants: 376 general practitioners. The 264 who worked in the same posts were randomised for the 6 pre-intervention months. 10 of them did not complete the post-intervention period.

Interventions: Four 45-minute training sessions in a 2-month period, given by health team doctors, with a critical reading of the studies available on recently marketed drugs, plus personal feed-back on prescription and bulletins on therapeutic novelties. The control group received only the feed-back and bulletins.

Main measurements: Prescription of new medication of little benefit, measured as the number of packages out of the total. Second, the amount of coxib and eprosartan measured as defined daily doses.

Results: In the 6 months after the educational sessions, the doctors in the intervention group prescribed proportionately fewer therapeutic novelties of little benefit than those allocated to the control group (1.34% vs 1.62%; P<.001). The coxib and eprosartan prescribed showed only a non-significant trend towards less prescription by the intervention group.

Conclusions: The group educational sessions, run by doctors trained in aspects of evidence-based medicine and prepared jointly with the pharmacy unit, reduced discreetly the prescription of new medicines that were not very innovative.

Objetivo: Evaluar la eficacia de una intervención educativa para minimizar la prescripción de medicamentos nuevos cuya aportación terapéutica es poco relevante.

Diseño: Estudio experimental, controlado y aleatorizado.

Emplazamiento: El estudio se realizó en 27 centros de salud de la provincia de Sevilla.

Participantes: Participaron 376 médicos de familia generalistas. Se aleatorizó a los 264 que trabajaron en una misma plaza los 6 meses preintervención; 10 de ellos no completaron el período postintervención.

Intervenciones: Se realizaron 4 sesiones formativas de 45 minutos en un intervalo de 2 meses, impartidas por médicos de equipos de salud, sobre lectura crítica de los estudios disponibles de medicamentos de reciente comercialización, además de retroinformación personalizada de la prescripción y los boletines sobre novedades terapéuticas. El grupo control recibió sólo la retroinformación y los boletines.

Mediciones principales: Prescripción de medicamentos nuevos poco relevantes, medida como la proporción de envases respecto al total de medicamentos.

Secundariamente, se midió la proporción de coxib y eprosartán medida como dosis diarias definidas.

Resultados: En los 6 meses posteriores a las sesiones educativas, los médicos del grupo intervención prescribieron proporcionalmente menos novedades terapéuticas no relevantes que los asignados al grupo control (el 1,34 frente al 1,62%, respectivamente; p < 0,001). La proporción de coxib y eprosartán sólo muestra una tendencia no significativa hacia una menor prescripción por el grupo intervención.

Conclusiones: Las sesiones educativas grupales, mediadas por médicos formados en elementos de medicina basada en la evidencia y preparadas de manera conjunta con la unidad de farmacia, disminuyen de manera discreta la prescripción de medicamentos nuevos escasamente innovadores.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Prescripción de nuevos medicamentos en atención primaria. Bol Ter Andal. 2001;17:17-20. Disponible en: www.easp.es/cadime
    1. Lexchin J. Are new drugs as good as they claim to be? Aust Prescr. 2004;27:2–3.
    1. Prosser H., Almond S., Walley T. Influences on GPs’ decision to prescribe new drugs-the importance of who says what. Fam Pract. 2003;20:61–68. - PubMed
    1. McGettigan P., Golden J., Fryer J., Chan R., Feely J. Prescribers prefer people: The sources of information used by doctors for prescribing suggest that the medium is more important than the message. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2001;51:184–189. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jones M.I., Greenfield S.M., Bradley C.P. Prescribing new drugs: qualitative study of influences on consultants and general practitioners. BMJ. 2001;323:378–381. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources