Physician Prescribing Behavior for NSAIDs

What determines which NSAIDs physicians prescribe? According to the Naik et al. (2009) the following six factors are the most important:

1. Direct Marketing by Pharmaceutical Reps.
2. Patient requests for medication, often driven by direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising.
3. Habits formed during medical school. Often, these habits are influenced by drug rep visits while the physician was in medical school.
4. Journals, electronic peer-reviewed literature, and professional meetings.
5. Local physician expert opinion and practice guidelines.
6. The physician’s own experience prescribing drugs to patients.

Although many physicians believe that academic journals and peer-reviewed literature provide the highest quality advice, few doctors actually follow this advice. Instead, many physicians rely on their “…relationships with local physician experts [in order to] provide interpretation and context to new clinical evidence, practice guidelines, and pharmaceutical marketing related to NSAID prescribing behaviors.”

• Aanand D. Naik, MD; Aaron L. Woofter, MD; Jessica M. Skinner, BA; and Neena S. Abraham, MD, MSc (2009) “Pharmaceutical Company Influence on Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Prescribing Behaviors,” American Journal of Managed Care, published online April 1, 2009.