According to a study, the shorter the duration of consultation with the doctor, the greater the likelihood of prescription errors.
- The duration of consultations with the doctor influences the prescriptions.
- The shorter the consultation time, the greater the likelihood that the medical prescriptions will be inappropriate.
- The average consultation time in this study was 18 minutes.
This is a study that is not reassuring. According to work published in the journal JAMA Health Forum, the probability that the medical prescriptions are inappropriate to the needs of the patient would be higher if the duration of a consultation with his doctor is rapid. In other words, the less time the consultations take, the more likely it is that the drugs prescribed are not the right ones.
Higher rates of inappropriate prescribing
To achieve their results, scientists from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis analyzed differences in the length of primary care visits and potentially inappropriate prescribing decisions made by physicians. This data involved more than 8.1 million medical appointments in the United States, with more than 4.3 million patients and 8,091 practitioners.
Results : “shorter visit duration was associated with higher rates of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for upper respiratory tract infections and inappropriate co-prescription of opioids and benzodiazepines (drugs which nevertheless have the risk of potentially fatal overdose notes the study) for patients with painful conditions“, explain the authors of this study in a communicated. Nevertheless, they indicate that these inappropriate prescriptions were not observed for other pathologies or reasons for consultation.
In France, the average consultation time would be 16 minutes
The average duration of a consultation was 18 minutes in this study… A longer time than in France. Indeed, according to a survey by the Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics Department (DREES) carried out in 2002 with private general practitioners, consultations and visits last an average of 16 minutes.
In work from 2022, scientists pointed out that inappropriate prescribing was not a conscious decision by doctors. The cause would come more, for the authors, from an excessively high workload which pushes them to see a lot of patients and therefore to go quickly during their consultations.
In this context, prescribing an antibiotic would therefore be an easy way to satisfy a patient rather than explaining that this drug does not cure a viral infection. “Prescriptions can be a way to make a patient feel heard”, explains Hannah T. Neprash, one of the authors of the article published in March.
The researchers believe that one of the solutions could be to review the fee-for-service system, to allow doctors to have more time with their patients.
