Semester
Fall
Date of Graduation
2003
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MS
College
School of Pharmacy
Department
Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy
Abstract
National guidelines recommend the use of beta-blockers, aspirin, and ACE-inhibitors in the management of post MI patients. These target drug classes continue to be under-prescribed; information on physicians' decision-making process requires attention and behavior change interventions have been proposed. This pilot study uses the Transtheoretical Model of Change; physicians' salience for the pros and cons of prescribing target drug classes constitutes the decisional balance measure, which can be used to predict their stage of readiness. A survey instrument was mailed to a sample of West Virginia physicians and 55 usable responses (34%) were received. Majority of the physicians self-reported in the action and maintenance stages of readiness; exhibiting a high salience for cons of prescribing beta-blocker therapy in patients with relative contraindications. Research can be guided towards increasing physicians' knowledge on use of target drug classes in the presence of relative contraindications. A larger sample size is required to validate the stage measure using the decisional balance construct.
Recommended Citation
Kamat, Siddhesh Ajit, "Development and validation of a measure to assess physician readiness to prescribe drug therapies for post-myocardial infarction patients" (2003). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD). 1794.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/1794