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2019-12-18
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Pharmacy Practice & Practice-Based Research
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Copyright (c) 2019 Deldar Abdulah, Karwan Ali Perot
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright of content published in INNOVATIONS in pharmacy belongs to the author(s).
Factors Influencing Prescribing Perceived Utility of Drugs: Experiences from Iraqi Kurdistan
Deldar Abdulah
University of Duhok
Karwan Ali Perot
Ph.D Student, School of Clinical Sciences, Auckland Univesrity of Tehcnology, Auckland, New Zealand
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/iip.v10i4.2316
Keywords: Prescription; drug administration; doctors’ attitudes; perceived utility
Abstract
Introduction: Pharmaceutical expenditures have increased dramatically in most developed and developing countries in recent decades. Healthcare system policymakers have expressed concerns about the inappropriate, irrational, or harmful prescribing of drugs.
Objectives: The attitudes of physicians towards prescribing generic drugs and predictors of perceived utility of drugs were investigated in the present study.
Methods: In this cross-sectional research, 77 physicians at different levels of job hierarchies, working in various public sector shifts, were recruited to participate in a survey of their attitudes toward prescribing generic drugs in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2018. The doctors were located in a general, an emergency, and a pediatric hospital. A self-administered structured questionnaire was designed based on the extended technology acceptance model for product use (TETPU).
Results: The doctors agreed that drugs should be prescribed according to their utility for patients (median [M] = 5.0; interquartile range [IQR] = 2.9). Most of the physicians mentioned that they prescribed drugs according to the patients’ needs (75.0%), evaluation of the availability of alternatives (69.0%) and consumer perceptions of a price (69.0%). The analysis showed that (1) the importance of physicians’ perceptions and their recognition of patients’ need achievement (P=.012), (2) the physicians' recognition of the actual use of drugs by consumers (P=.030) and (3) being male (p=.009) were associated with perceptions of drug utility.
Conclusions: The study’s results suggest that perceived drug utility in prescription writing is associated with physicians’ perceptions of need achievement and attitudes toward how patients actually use medicines.
Article Type: Original Research
