BMJ 1998;316:938 ( 21 March )

Letters

Doctors are not pressured into giving prescriptions

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITORFrom their study of general practices in Australia, Cockburn and Pit suggested that patients who expect a prescription are more likely to be given one by their doctor.¹ We found similar results in an unpublished study that looked at all consultations in five Oxford general practices over one week in 1994. Questionnaires were given to patients before consultation to ascertain age, sex, and whether a prescription was expected. Patients were excluded from the study if they were attending for special clinics, receiving repeat prescriptions, or less than 18 years old. For each eligible patient (n=371) the doctors received a complementary questionnaire asking whether they prescribed a drug and, if they did, to indicate their confidence in its pharmacological efficacy on a visual analogue scale (0-100%). Doctors were blinded to the patients' responses.

We found that 184 (50%) patients received a prescriptionthe same proportion as that in Cockburn and Pit's study . . . [Full text of this article]

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