Study: 50 Percent Of Docs Don’t Know Indications Drugs Are Approved For
A new study is out in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety and it asserts that about 50 percent of the time doctors don’t know the approval status of certain drugs and, apparently, think they are approved for indications for which they are not. Maybe that’s how the crisis in off-label prescribing came about, likely aided and abetted by pharma reps.
“Psychiatrists and primary care physicians were given lists of drug-indication pairs that differed except for six pairs: valproic acid for bipolar disorder, mania; escitalopram (Lexapro) for panic disorder; gabapentin for diabetic neuropathy; trazodone for insomnia; venlafaxine (Effexor) for adjustment disorder; and quetiapine (Seroquel) for dementia with agitation.
“The authors received 457 usable surveys, 54% from psychiatrists and 46% from primary care physicians. On average, primary care physicians had prescribed 10 of the drugs at least once in the previous year for any indication, and psychiatrists had prescribed 11.
“Respondents knew the correct FDA-approval status of 55% (mean) to 57% (median) of the drug-indication pairs.
“When the pairs were limited to drugs the respondents had prescribed in the past year, the mean accuracy increased to 60% and the median to 63%.
“Overall, psychiatrists demonstrated better knowledge of FDA approval status (66% mean, 71% median) than did primary care physicians (42% mean, 38% median).”
I know doctors need to keep a lot of information in their heads about drugs, but this kind of failure rate is absurd and should give anyone pause who get a scrip from a doc.
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