Characteristics of general practices that prescribe appropriately for asthma
BMJ 1995; 311 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.311.7019.1547 (Published 09 December 1995) Cite this as: BMJ 1995;311:1547
- Patricia Sturdy, research officera,
- Jeannette Naish, general practitionera,
- Filomena Pereira, lecturer in medical statistics Make Chambers lecturer in urban and regional health Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PGa,
- Chris Griffiths, general practitionera,
- Susan Dolan, research analysta,
- Peter Toon, general practitioner Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, The London Hospital Medical College at Queen Mary and Westfield Collegea,
- Mike Chambers
- City and East London General Practice Database Project, Department of General Practice and Primary Care, Medical College of St Bartholomew's and the London Hospitals, Medical Sciences, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London E1 4NS
- Correspondence to: Dr Naish.
- Accepted 16 August 1995
We have previously found that the ratio of prophylactic to bronchodilator prescriptions is a crude indicator of appropriate prescribing for asthma.1 In this study we explored the possible influence of the general practitioner, the practice, and the practice population on this ratio.
Methods
and results
Complete data sets were obtained for 150 of the 163 practices in east London for April 1992 to March 1993. Their asthma prescribing patterns have been described elsewhere.1 The 23 predictor variables selected for the analyses are listed in the table; detailed descriptions are available from the authors. The outcome variables were the ratio of prophylactic drugs to bronchodilators prescribed measured as both items and net ingredient cost (logarithm of ratio). Two models were constructed by stepwise multiple linear regression analysis with backward elimination of …