Abstract
BackgroundStudies 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.MethodsA 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.ResultsAmong 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%.ConclusionsTrade 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.
Highlights
Studies in the United States have shown that physicians commonly use brand names when documenting medications in an outpatient setting
There is little research to support whether the changes implemented at the undergraduate level regarding nomenclature use have influenced the clinical setting of postgraduate medical education and existing research on patterns and best practices for medication documentation in clinical academic settings is sparse
The objective of this study is to describe the use of generic versus brand names for pharmaceutical products in clinical documentation in a large, urban academic family practice
Summary
Studies in the United States have shown that physicians commonly use brand names when documenting medications in an outpatient setting. In the context of medical education, much of the conversation has focused on the influence the pharmaceutical industry can have on medical trainees and how it might impact their choice of treatments for patients [16, 17] This influence is recognized as a contributor to systemic conflict-of-interests and the transmission of potentially biased information to trainees [18, 19]. In response to this concern, several changes have been made at the undergraduate level, including moving towards using only generic names when discussing pharmaceuticals in lectures and small group sessions [20,21,22]. The objective of this study is to describe the use of generic versus brand names for pharmaceutical products in clinical documentation in a large, urban academic family practice
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