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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13285

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: Journal Article

Kapmeyer A, Meyer C, Kochen MM, Himmel W.
Doctors' strategies in prescribing drugs: the case of mood-modifying medicines.
Fam Pract 2006 Feb; 23:(1):73-9
http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/23/1/73


Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Little is known about doctors’ decision-making processes in prescribing antidepressants and how this is handled.

OBJECTIVE: To describe and understand doctors’ strategies in prescribing mood-modifying drugs, especially when confronted with challenging patients or situations.

METHODS: Face-to-face interviews were conducted with GPs in Göttingen and Hannover, two areas in the north of Germany. GPs were enrolled until a sufficient variation (‘saturation’) had been reached (n = 19). Interviews were audiotaped and then transcribed verbatim. To analyse the GPs’ concepts and strategies in prescribing antidepressants, the interviews were structured according to themes and recurrent items extracted by theoretical coding.

RESULTS: We identified four main strategies used by GPs in the pharmacological management of depressive patients: marketing additional beneficial drug effects, addressing the patients as experts, somatic attribution of the disease and referral to a specialist.

CONCLUSIONS: To support their prescription, GPs use a variety of strategies to motivate both patients to take a certain drug and themselves to deal with difficult patients or situations in their management of depression.

Keywords:
Publication Types: Comparative Study Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH Terms: Antidepressive Agents/therapeutic use* Attitude of Health Personnel Drug Utilization* Family Practice/standards* Family Practice/trends Female Germany Health Care Surveys Humans Male Mood Disorders/diagnosis Mood Disorders/drug therapy* Physician's Practice Patterns* Prescriptions, Drug/standards* Questionnaires Total Quality Management Substances: Antidepressive Agents


Notes:

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963