Semester
Fall
Date of Graduation
2003
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MS
College
School of Pharmacy
Department
Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy
Committee Chair
Jan Kavookjian.
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. 1794.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/1794