Doctors' perceptions of patients' wishes influence decision to prescribe drugs

BMJ 1998;317:211 ( 18 July )

Letters

Doctors' perceptions of patients' wishes influence decision to prescribe drugs

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

EDITOR $---$ The BMJ published several studies last year on the influence of the expectations that patients have of prescriptions.^1-3One of the most striking results of these studies is the factthat not only do patients' expectations influence a doctor's decisionto prescribe but so also do the doctor's perceptions of theseexpectations, whether these perceptions are accurate or not.

This corresponds to the findings of a study we conducted on patients' attitudes towards drug prescriptions in general practicesin Germany.⁴ We found that nearly all patients who, in their doctor's opinion, expected a drug left the surgery with a prescription.However, doctors accurately perceived the patient's wish for adrug prescription in only 41% of cases. We did not detect any differences in patient satisfaction whether or not patients' expectationswith regard to a prescription were fulfilled.

These results do not really support the stereotype of the demanding . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

StumbleUpon Add to Technorati

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

Prescribing behaviour in clinical practice: patients' expectations and doctors' perceptions of patients' expectations—a questionnaire study: Jill Cockburn and Sabrina Pit
BMJ 1997 315: 520-523. [Abstract] [Full Text]