Pharmaceutical care and its relationship to prescribing behaviour of general practitioners.
OBJECTIVE
To study the correlation between pharmaceutical care and prescribing routines of general practitioners (GPs).


METHODS
Cross-sectional study; 201 pharmacies, 408 general practices, The Netherlands, 2000/2001. The variation in prescribing behaviour was characterised using 20 validated prescribing indicators based on general practice guidelines. The general construct 'adherence to guidelines' served as the dependent variable and was formed by summing the scores of the prescribing indicators. Four possible determinants of the variation were determined on the basis of survey questions: the construct 'the pharmacist's attitude towards pharmaceutical care', and three partial constructs derived from the pharmacist's care-providing function: the care for the individual patient, the cooperation with general practitioners and the registration of the care provided. A multiple linear regression analysis was then performed.


METHODS
The weighted score for the prescribing indicators.


RESULTS
The weighted average score for the prescribing indicators was 65% (SD 3.7). The response rate to the survey was 71%. The pharmacist's attitude to pharmaceutical care, as well as the degree to which the pharmacist provided care for the individual patient, the degree to which he cooperated with the general practitioner and the degree to which he registered the care provided were not correlated with the 'adherence to guidelines' by the general practitioner with whom the pharmacist frequently cooperated.


CONCLUSIONS
Variations between general practitioners in the quality of prescribing, as measured by their adherence to guidelines, were not correlated with pharmaceutical care by the pharmacist with whom they cooperated on a day-to-day basis.
Muijrers
Paul E M
PE
Division Healthcare, CZ Health Insurance Company, PO Box 55, 6130MA, Sittard, The Netherlands.
Grol
Richard P T M
RP
Sijbrandij
Jildou
J
Janknegt
Rob
R
Knottnerus
J André
JA
D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands; D010593:Pharmaceutical Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires