See full prescribing information for complete boxed warning. • Increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults taking antidepressants for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. SYMBYAX is not approved for use in children and adolescents (5.1, 8.4, 17.2). • Elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis treated with antipsyc...

BACKGROUND In 2007, Alberta became the first Canadian jurisdiction to grant pharmacists a wide range of prescribing privileges. Our objective was to understand what factors influence pharmacists' adoption of prescribing using a model for the Diffusion of Innovations in healthcare services. METHODS Pharmacists participated in semi-structured telephone interviews to discuss their prescribing pr...

For more than a decade, the Beers criteria have identified specific medications that should generally be avoided in the geriatric population. Studies that have shown high prevalence rates of these potentially inappropriate medications have used disparate methodologies to identify these medications and hence are difficult to replicate and generalize. In an effort to improve prescribing behavior,...

Prescription drug spending is growing faster than any other sector of healthcare. However, very little is known about patterns of prescribing and cost of prescribing between general practices. In this study, we examined variation in prescription rates and prescription costs through time for 55 GP surgeries in Northern Ireland Western Health and Social Care Trust. Temporal changes in variability...

British Journal of General Practice, May 2014 259 pRevalenCe, natuRe, and Causes of pResCRIbIng eRRoRs In geneRal pRaCtICe Over the past 10 years our team has been involved in a wide range of studies of prescribing in general practice, but one we feel that has really made a difference is the PRACtICe study, which was funded by the General Medical Council.1,2 In this study we took a sample of 15...

Interest is resurging in the problems relating to the quality of patient care. This paper provides a comparative perspective on this issue from a five-country physician survey conducted in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States in 2000. Physicians in all five countries reported a recent decline in quality of care and concerns with how hospitals address medical...

OBJECTIVES To describe ambulatory care clinicians' perspectives on the effect of e-prescribing systems on patient safety outcomes. STUDY DESIGN We used a mixed-method study of clinicians and staff in 64 practices using one of six e-prescribing technologies in six U.S. states. METHODS We used clinician surveys (web-based and paper) and focus groups to obtain clinicians' perspectives on e-pre...

CONTEXT Controversy exists over the fact that physicians have regular contact with the pharmaceutical industry and its sales representatives, who spend a large sum of money each year promoting to them by way of gifts, free meals, travel subsidies, sponsored teachings, and symposia. OBJECTIVE To identify the extent of and attitudes toward the relationship between physicians and the pharmaceuti...

BACKGROUND Little is known about patients' awareness of and attitudes about gifts to physicians from pharmaceutical companies. METHODS During a 7-week period in summer 1994, we surveyed adults (18 years of age and older) in the waiting rooms of two family practice centers in central Missouri. Four-hundred eighty-six adults (83 percent participation rate) responded to a self-administered quest...

BACKGROUND prescribing in nursing homes is frequently suboptimal. Indicators to measure prescribing quality, including appropriateness of prescribing certain drugs or combinations of drugs, to hospital inpatients have been developed previously. OBJECTIVE to modify prescribing indicators, including appropriateness of prescribing algorithms developed in the hospital setting, for use in nursing ...