Effect of an Educational Pamphlet on General Practitioner's Prescribing Skill: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Education is a key element for the success of health services delivery. Pamphlet is a distance learning method of education. Regarding the critical role of correct and reasonable prescriptions by physicians, we aimed to investigate the effect of sending an educational pamphlet to general practitioners on their prescribing skills.

This study is a randomized controlled trial. We randomly assessed 600 prescriptions of general practitioners to identify their errors. Based on the most common content errors and literature review, we developed an educational pamphlet under supervision of clinical pharmacology professors. A total of 200 general practitioners (100 individuals in each intervention and control groups) were randomly selected from the general practitioners in contract with the Social Security Organization of Tehran; and their prescriptions were assessed in a one-month period. The pamphlets were sent to the intervention group. The prescriptions of both groups were assessed after three months.

A significant decrease was evidenced in the number of prescribing medicines (p=0.014) (from 3.61±0.87 before the intervention to 3.50±0.95 after the intervention) in the intervention group. Decreases in prescription of injections (p=0.024), Corticosteroids (p=0.036), the 3rd generation of Cephalosporin (p=0.017) and Non steroidal inflammatory drugs (p=0.005) were also observed in the prescriptions of the intervention group after the intervention.

As general practitioners are often unwilling to participate in face to face teaching programs, the results of this study showed that a suitable educational pamphlet has significant effects on GPs’ prescribing skill. Pamphlets should be used as a means of continuous medical education.