BMJ  2003;326:1178-1179 (31 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7400.1178

Primary care

Characteristics of general practitioners who frequently see drug industry representatives: national cross sectional study

Chris Watkins, general practitioner1, Laurence Moore, senior research fellow2, Ian Harvey, professor of epidemiology and public health3, Patricia Carthy, research associate4, Elizabeth Robinson, general practitioner5, Richard Brawn, lecturer in education6

1 Backwell and Nailsea Medical Group, Backwell, Bristol BS48 3HA, 2 Cardiff University School of Social Sciences, Cardiff CF10 3WT, 3 School of Medicine, Health Policy and Practice, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, 4 Research and Development Support Unit, Salisbury NHS Health Care Trust, Salisbury SP2 8BJ, 5 Bloomsbury Surgery, London WC1N 1PB, 6 Graduate School of Education, Bristol BS8 1JA

Correspondence C Watkins chris.watkins@Bristol.ac.uk

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

Introduction

Variation in prescribing costs between general practitioners is well documented.1 We previously found that frequent general practitioner contact with drug industry representatives was strongly and independently associated with higher prescribing costs.2 This paper describes the attitudes and behaviour of general practitioners who report seeing drug representatives frequently.

Participants, methods, and results

We sent a questionnaire to all general practitioners in 200 English practices randomly selected from three groups defined as the bottom, middle, and top fifths of prescribing costs. The questionnaire elicited general practitioners' personal and practice characteristics and their agreement with a series of statements about their prescribing attitudes and behaviour. Full details of the methods have been published.2

In all, 1097 of the 1714 general practitioners (64%) responded. We included the responses to each statement in a set of univariable logistic regression models in which the dependent variable was whether the general practitioner reported seeing drug representatives at least once a week. . . . [Full text of this article]

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