• T Molina López, J C Domínguez Camacho, J M Santos Lozano, A Carbonell Carrillo, J Sánchez Acevedo, and M L Paz León.
• sspa@juntadeandalucia.es
• Aten Primaria. 2005 Oct 31; 36 (7): 367372367-72.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the efficacy of an educational intervention to minimise the prescription of those new medicines whose therapeutic effects are of little benefit.DesignControlled and randomised experimental study.Setting27 health centres in the province of Sevilla, Spain.Participants376 general practitioners. The 264 who worked in the same posts were randomised for the 6 pre-intervention months. 10 of them did not complete the post-intervention period.InterventionsFour 45-minute training sessions in a 2-month period, given by health team doctors, with a critical reading of the studies available on recently marketed drugs, plus personal feed-back on prescription and bulletins on therapeutic novelties. The control group received only the feed-back and bulletins.Main MeasurementsPrescription of new medication of little benefit, measured as the number of packages out of the total. Second, the amount of coxib and eprosartan measured as defined daily doses.ResultsIn the 6 months after the educational sessions, the doctors in the intervention group prescribed proportionately fewer therapeutic novelties of little benefit than those allocated to the control group (1.34% vs 1.62%; P<.001). The coxib and eprosartan prescribed showed only a non-significant trend towards less prescription by the intervention group.ConclusionsThe group educational sessions, run by doctors trained in aspects of evidence-based medicine and prepared jointly with the pharmacy unit, reduced discreetly the prescription of new medicines that were not very innovative.

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