Journal article

A systematic review of the literature comparing the practices of dispensing and non-dispensing doctors

David Lim, Jon Emery, Janice Lewis, V Bruce Sunderland

HEALTH POLICY | ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD | Published : 2009

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Some doctors perform the dual roles of prescribing and dispensing pharmaceuticals. The dispensing doctors (DDs) role may give rise to prescribing behaviours that vary from those of non-DDs. The aim of this review was to systematically and comparatively appraise the research evidence related to the practices of DDs. METHODS: A systematic search of bibliographic databases and reference lists from selected papers were the sources of the data. Inclusion criteria were papers published in English, between 1970 and 2008 that provided quantitative data comparing the practices of DDs and non-DDs. At least two of the authors abstracted data from all eligible papers using a purpose-made dat..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge that the work presented in this paper was part of a Doctor of Public Health thesis conducted at the School of Public Health, Curtin University of Technology. This systematic review is supported by the Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development (PHCRED) Research Development Fellowship 2007.