Physicians, pharmaceutical sales representatives, and the cost of prescribing.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the influence of primary care physicians' attitudes toward and use of information provided by pharmaceutical representatives on prescribing costs in ambulatory practice. DESIGN A mailed questionnaire collected information about physician demographic and practice characteristics and attitudes toward and use of information provided by pharmaceutical representatives. PARTICIPANTS Kentucky physicians practicing primary care adult medicine (family medicine, general practice, general medicine; n = 1603). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Relative cost of prescribing, based on physician responses to treatment choices for ambulatory clinical scenarios in primary care. A multivariable regression model assessed predictive relationships between independent variables and prescription costs. RESULTS Four hundred forty-six returned questionnaires were suitable for analysis. No significant differences were noted in age, gender, days worked per week, or years since graduation between responders and a sample of nonresponders. A significant positive correlation was found between physician cost of prescribing and perceived credibility, availability, applicability, and use of information provided by pharmaceutical representatives (P < .01, Pearson's Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient). Physicians in academic or hospital-based practice settings had significantly lower prescribing costs than physicians in nonacademic and nonhospital practices (P = .001, analysis of variance). Frequency of use of information provided by pharmaceutical representatives (P = .01, multiple linear regression) and the group practice setting (P = .02, multiple linear regression) remained significant, independent positive predictors of cost in the multivariable regression model. CONCLUSIONS Frequency of use of information provided by pharmaceutical representatives and the group practice, nonacademic and nonhospital setting may be associated with increased primary care physician prescribing costs.