General practitioners are prescribing fewer medications overall
for their patients than they were four years ago-particularly
antibiotics, some analgesics, and respiratory drugs-according to a
new report released today by the University of Sydney and the
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
But there were also significant increases in rates of treatment
with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), typically used
to treat arthritic pain, and cholesterol-lowering drugs such as
statins for patients with cardiovascular disease.
General Practice Activity in Australia 2001-02 is based
on an ongoing survey of 100,000 doctor-patient consultations from a
random sample of 1000 GPs a year. It gives an insight into why
people visit their GP, health problems managed, and types of
treatments received.
The report shows that antibiotics, and cardiovascular and
central nervous system-related drugs were those most frequently
prescribed by doctors.
Antibiotics accounted for 4 of the top 10 medications most
frequently prescribed by GPs, but the prescription rate for these
drugs fell from 17.3 to 14.5 per 100 consultations between 1998-99
and 2001-02.
Director of the AIHW's General Practice Statistics and
Classification Unit at the University of Sydney, Professor Helena
Britt, said that doctors now seemed to be prescribing less and
counselling more.
'For every 100 consultations in 1998-99, for example, the
average GP prescribed 94 medications, advised or counselled the
patients 31 times and undertook 12 procedures.'
'Four years later, GPs are prescribing less medication-88 per
100 consultations-and they are giving advice or counselling 38
times, and undertaking 14 procedures.
'Such a change has a huge impact when we realise there are over
100 million GP-patient consultations in Australia every year.'
Dr Britt said that the increase in prescription of NSAIDs (up
from 4.5 to 5.3 per 100 consultations) was almost entirely
explained by an increase in prescriptions for a relatively new
group of drugs known as coxibs, usually prescribed for the
treatment of arthritic pain.
'In many cases coxibs are probably being prescribed for patients
who were not previously able to take NSAIDs, perhaps because of the
possible side effects of those available in the past.'
The increase in prescription of lipid-lowering agents for
control of blood cholesterol levels parallels a significant rise in
the rate of management of lipid disorders over the last 3
years.
'GPs are now managing lipid problems on an extra 180,000
occasions every year,' Professor Britt said.
'This overall increase appears to be a combination of a steady
number of new cases and a growing pool of patients continuing on
long-term therapy.'
Overall, the problems most frequently managed by doctors were
hypertension (9 per 100 consultations), upper respiratory tract
infection (6.2 per 100), vaccination (4.7 per 100), and depression
(3.4 per 100).
5 December 2002
Further information: A/Professor Helena Britt,
tel. 02 9845 8150 (wk), or 0411 197 938 (mobile)
For media copies of the report: Publications
Officer, tel. 02 6244 1032, OR Media Office, University of Sydney,
02 9351 2261
Availability: Check the AIHW Publications
Catalogue for details.