title: Prescription drug misuse in New Zealand: challenges for primary health care professionals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Prescription drug misuse (PDM) is an international phenomenon. Prescription drugs sought for this purpose are often obtained through the primary health care network.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to explore the challenges faced by community pharmacists (CPs) and general practitioners (GPs) when faced with the issue of "drug-seeking" and PDM. This forms part of a larger study of PDM issues for primary health care practitioners.
  
  
  METHODS
  Qualitative interviews were carried out in New Zealand with 17 GPs and 16 CPs, purposively sampled to provide information from a variety of demographic and work environments. Interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and a thematic analysis conducted. Data collection took place between June 2007 and January 2008, and interviewees were offered an NZ$30 voucher in recognition of their contribution to the research.
  
  
  RESULTS
  GPs and CPs faced a series of challenges in managing PDM, including identification of PDM, dealing with requests for inappropriate requests for psychoactive prescription drugs, verifying the legitimacy of requests and managing threatening behaviors. Specific issues were faced by rural practitioners, female practitioners and by locums and part-time staff. In particular, some participants reported feeling emotionally stressed after unpleasant drug-seeking incidents and some acknowledged that they may have missed identifying some drug-seeking because of lack of knowledge, "drug-seekers'" sophisticated strategies, or patients falling outside of their image of the archetypal "drug-seeker."
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study demonstrated that PDM can be an issue for primary health care practitioners, and it can cause disruption to their work. Training in how to better manage threatening and escalating incidents may be useful as would increasing the level of awareness of PDM issues among health professional students.
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, University of Auckland, New Zealand. j.sheridan@auckland.ac.nz
authors.forename: Janie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sheridan
authors.forename: Rachael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Butler
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D055030:Drug Users; D058999:Drug-Seeking Behavior; D005260:Female; D058005:General Practitioners; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009520:New Zealand; D010594:Pharmacies; D010595:Pharmacists; D055553:Prescription Drugs; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011365:Professional Practice Location; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D013997:Time Factors; D014754:Violence; D016526:Workload
chemical_list: D055553:Prescription Drugs