Page 19 - Management Theory 2023-2024 Edition

www.pharmacyexam.com Krisman

In this model, the prescribing decision of the prescriber merely depends on two major criteria:

1. The outcome of a prescribed drug.
2. The risk associated with a prescribed drug.

For example, if a patient is suffering from a mild illness, and a prescribed drug may cause serious and fatal
reactions, it is unlikely that the prescriber will prescribe the drug to the patient. In contrast, if the patient is
suffering from cancer or any other serious illness, it will force the prescriber to take the risk associated with the
prescribed drug due to the seriousness of a disease.

In this model, the prescriber’s concerns about drug attributes such as dosage, strength, duration and length of
action of the prescribed drug, and correlates these attributes with drug’s outcomes such as side or toxic effects
of the drug, or cure rates of the drug. Thus, cognitive models of prescribing focus on which prescribing outcomes
and drug attributes are really important when physicians make prescribing decisions.

The drug-choice model is a cognitive prescribing model related to Vroom’s expectancy theory. Factors that
affect the drug-choice model (selecting drugs for optimum benefit) are:

1. Control of disease by the prescribed drug
2. Patient’s compliance with the prescribed drug
3. Side effects of the prescribed drug
4. Cost of the prescribed drug
5. Is the prescribed drug satisfying a patient’s demand?
6. Criticism for colleagues

Sources of drug information that help physicians compare attributes and outcomes of drugs, and thus help in
prescribing decisions.

1. Core education
2. Continuing education programs
3. Professional colleagues
4. Pharmaceutical advertising and pharmaceutical sales representatives
5. Patients may provide information about drugs through their previous clinical experience with drug
therapy, or may request a specific drug be prescribed. Researchers believe that a patient’s psychology is
a major factor that affects the physician’s prescribing decisions.

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