We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Examining patterns in medication documentation of trade and generic names in an academic family practice training centre.
- Authors
Summers, Alexander; Ruderman, Carly; Fok-Han Leung; Slater, Morgan
- Abstract
Background: Studies in the United States have shown that physicians commonly use brand names when documenting medications in an outpatient setting. However, the prevalence of prescribing and documenting brand name medication has not been assessed in a clinical teaching environment. The purpose of this study was to describe the use of generic versus brand names for a select number of pharmaceutical products in clinical documentation in a large, urban academic family practice centre. Methods: A retrospective chart review of the electronic medical records of the St. Michael's Hospital Academic Family Health Team (SMHAFHT). Data for twenty commonly prescribed medications were collected from the Cumulative Patient Profile as of August 1, 2014. Each medication name was classified as generic or trade. Associations between documentation patterns and physician characteristics were assessed. Results: Among 9763 patients prescribed any of the twenty medications of interest, 45% of patient charts contained trade nomenclature exclusively. 32% of charts contained only generic nomenclature, and 23% contained a mix of generic and trade nomenclature. There was large variation in use of generic nomenclature amongst physicians, ranging from 19% to 93%. Conclusions: Trade names in clinical documentation, which likely reflect prescribing habits, continue to be used abundantly in the academic setting. This may become part of the informal curriculum, potentially facilitating undue bias in trainees. Further study is needed to determine characteristics which influence use of generic or trade nomenclature and the impact of this trend on trainees' clinical knowledge and decision-making.
- Subjects
DRUG prescribing; GENERAL practitioners; OUTPATIENT medical care; DRUG efficacy; DRUG labeling
- Publication
BMC Medical Education, 2017, Vol 17, p1
- ISSN
1472-6920
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1186/s12909-017-1015-z