title: When direct health-care professional communications have an impact on inappropriate and unsafe use of medicines.
abstract: Serious safety issues relating to drugs are communicated to health-care professionals via Direct Health-Care Professional Communications (DHPCs). We explored which characteristics determined the impact of DHPCs issued in the Netherlands for ambulatory-care drugs (2001-2008). With multiple linear regression, we examined the impact on the relative change in new drug use post-DHPC of the following: time to DHPC, trend in use, degree of innovation, specialist drug, first/repeated DHPC, DHPC template, and type of safety issue. DHPCs have less impact on use of specialist drugs than nonspecialist drugs (P < 0.05). The DHPCs' impact increased after availability of a template emphasizing the main problem (P < 0.05), and for safety issues with a risk of death and/or disability (both P < 0.05) (adjusted R² = 0.392). Risk communication can be effective, specifically in case of well-structured information, and very serious safety issues. Effectiveness may improve by tailoring DHPCs and adding other communication channels, for example for drugs that are increasingly being used.
authors: Department of Marketing, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors: K C
authors: KC
authors: Reber
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Piening
authors: J E
authors: JE
authors: Wieringa
authors: S M J M
authors: SM
authors: Straus
authors: J M
authors: JM
authors: Raine
authors: P A
authors: PA
authors: de Graeff
authors: F M
authors: FM
authors: Haaijer-Ruskamp
authors: P G M
authors: PG
authors: Mol
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000639:trends*; D003142:Communication; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000639:trends*; D009426:Netherlands; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000639:trends*; D013997:Time Factors