IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/irh/wpaper/dt18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A refutation of the practice style hypothesis: the case of antibiotics prescription by French general practitioners for acute rhinopharyngitis

Author

Listed:
  • Julien Mousquès

    (IRDES Institute for research and information in health economics)

  • Thomas Renaud

    (IRDES Institute for research and information in health economics)

  • Olivier Scemama

    (HAS French National Authority for Health)

Abstract

Many researches in France or abroad have highlighted the medical practice variation (MPV)phenomenon, or even the inappropriateness of certain medical decisions. There is no consensus on the origin of this MPV between preference-centred versus opportunities and constraints approaches. This study principal purpose is to refute hypothesis which assume that physicians adopt for their patient a uniform practice style for each similar clinical decision beyond the time. More specifically, multilevel models are estimated: First to measure variability of antibiotics prescription by French general practitioners for acute rhinopharyngitis, a clinical decision making context with weak uncertainty, and to tests its significance; Second to prioritize its determinants, especially those relating to GP or its practice setting environment, by controlling visit or patient confounders. The study was based on the 2001 activity data, added by an ad hoc questionnaire, of a sample of 778 GPs arising from a panel of 1006 computerized French GPs. We observe that a great part of the total variation was due to intra-physician variability (70%). Hence, in the French general practice context, we find empirical support for the rejection of the ‘practice style’, the ’enthusiasm’ or the ‘surgical signature’ hypothesis. Thus, it is patients' characteristics that largely explain the prescription, even if physicians' characteristics (area of practice, level of activity, network participation, participation in ongoing medical training) and environmental factors (recent visit from pharmaceutical sales representatives) also exert considerable influence. The latter suggest that MPV are partly caused by differences in the type of dissemination or diffusion of information. Such findings may help us to develop and identify facilitators for promoting a better use of antibiotics in France and, more generally, for influencing GPs practice when it is of interest.

Suggested Citation

  • Julien Mousquès & Thomas Renaud & Olivier Scemama, 2008. "A refutation of the practice style hypothesis: the case of antibiotics prescription by French general practitioners for acute rhinopharyngitis," Working Papers DT18, IRDES institut for research and information in health economics, revised Oct 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:irh:wpaper:dt18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.irdes.fr/EspaceAnglais/Publications/WorkingPapers/DT18RefutationPracticeAntibioticPrescriptionRhinopharyngitis.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2008
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Casparie, Anton F., 1996. "The ambiguous relationship between practice variation and appropriateness of care: an agenda for further research," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 247-265, March.
    2. Westert, Gert P. & Groenewegen, Peter P., 1999. "Regional disparities in health care supply in eleven European countries: does politics matter?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 169-182, May.
    3. Pelletier-Fleury, Nathalie & Le Vaillant, Marc & Hebbrecht, Gilles & Boisnault, Philippe, 2007. "Determinants of preventive services in general practice: A multilevel approach in cardiovascular domain and vaccination in France," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(2-3), pages 218-227, May.
    4. Scott, Anthony & Shiell, Alan, 1997. "Do fee descriptors influence treatment choices in general practice? A multilevel discrete choice model," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 323-342, June.
    5. de Jong, Judith D. & Groenewegen, Peter P. & Westert, Gert P., 2003. "Mutual influences of general practitioners in partnerships," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 1515-1524, October.
    6. Wennberg, John E. & Barnes, Benjamin A. & Zubkoff, Michael, 1982. "Professional uncertainty and the problem of supplier-induced demand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 16(7), pages 811-824, January.
    7. Duncan, Craig & Jones, Kelvyn & Moon, Graham, 1998. "Context, composition and heterogeneity: Using multilevel models in health research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 97-117, January.
    8. Davis, Peter & Gribben, Barry & Scott, Alastair & Lay-Yee, Roy, 2000. "The "supply hypothesis" and medical practice variation in primary care: testing economic and clinical models of inter-practitioner variation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 407-418, February.
    9. Eric Delattre & Brigitte Dormont, 2003. "Fixed fees and physician‐induced demand: A panel data study on French physicians," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(9), pages 741-754, September.
    10. Nigel Rice & Andrew Jones, 1997. "Multilevel models and health economics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(6), pages 561-575, November.
    11. Anthony Scott & Alan Shiell, 1997. "Analysing the effect of competition on General Practitioners' behaviour using a multilevel modelling framework," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(6), pages 577-588, November.
    12. Sophie Béjean & Christine Peyron & Renaud Urbinelli, 2007. "Variations in activity and practice patterns: a French study for GPs," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 8(3), pages 225-236, September.
    13. Charles E. Phelps, 1995. "Perspectives in health economics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(5), pages 335-353, September.
    14. Paraponaris, A. & Verger, P. & Desquins, B. & Villani, P. & Bouvenot, G. & Rochaix, L. & Gourheux, J. C. & Moatti, J. P. AU -, 2004. "Delivering generics without regulatory incentives?: Empirical evidence from French general practitioners about willingness to prescribe international non-proprietary names," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 23-32, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thierry Debrand & Christine Sorasith, 2010. "Out-of-Pocket Maximum Rules under a Compulsatory Health Care Insurance Scheme: A Choice between Equality and Equity," Working Papers DT34, IRDES institut for research and information in health economics, revised Nov 2010.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mousquès, Julien & Renaud, Thomas & Scemama, Olivier, 2010. "Is the "practice style" hypothesis relevant for general practitioners? An analysis of antibiotics prescription for acute rhinopharyngitis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1176-1184, April.
    2. Mangham-Jefferies, Lindsay & Hanson, Kara & Mbacham, Wilfred & Onwujekwe, Obinna & Wiseman, Virginia, 2014. "What determines providers' stated preference for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 98-106.
    3. M. Lippi Bruni & L. Nobilio & C. Ugolini, 2007. "Economic Incentives in General Practice: the Impact of Pay for Participation Programs on Diabetes Care," Working Papers 607, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    4. Sicsic, Jonathan & Le Vaillant, Marc & Franc, Carine, 2012. "Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in primary care: An explanatory study among French general practitioners," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 140-148.
    5. Troels Kristensen & Kim Olsen & Henrik Schroll & Janus Thomsen & Anders Halling, 2014. "Association between fee-for-service expenditures and morbidity burden in primary care," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(6), pages 599-610, July.
    6. Lippi Bruni, Matteo & Nobilio, Lucia & Ugolini, Cristina, 2009. "Economic incentives in general practice: The impact of pay-for-participation and pay-for-compliance programs on diabetes care," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(2-3), pages 140-148, May.
    7. Iversen, Tor & Luras, Hilde, 2000. "Economic motives and professional norms: the case of general medical practice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 447-470, December.
    8. Denzil G. Fiebig & Rosalie Viney & Stephanie Knox & Marion Haas & Deborah J. Street & Arne R. Hole & Edith Weisberg & Deborah Bateson, 2017. "Consideration Sets and Their Role in Modelling Doctor Recommendations About Contraceptives," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 54-73, January.
    9. Léonard, Christian & Stordeur, Sabine & Roberfroid, Dominique, 2009. "Association between physician density and health care consumption: A systematic review of the evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 121-134, July.
    10. Pelletier-Fleury, Nathalie & Le Vaillant, Marc & Hebbrecht, Gilles & Boisnault, Philippe, 2007. "Determinants of preventive services in general practice: A multilevel approach in cardiovascular domain and vaccination in France," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(2-3), pages 218-227, May.
    11. Marjon M. Van Der Pol & John A. Cairns, 1998. "The efficient organization of blood donation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(5), pages 455-463, August.
    12. Fredrik Carlsson & Peter Martinsson, 2001. "Willingness to pay for reduction in air pollution: a multilevel analysis," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 4(1), pages 17-27, April.
    13. Eibich, Peter & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2014. "Analyzing regional variation in health care utilization using (rich) household microdata," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 41-53.
    14. Xiaohui Zhang & Katharina Hauck & Xueyan Zhao, 2013. "Patient Safety In Hospitals – A Bayesian Analysis Of Unobservable Hospital And Specialty Level Risk Factors," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(9), pages 1158-1174, September.
    15. Oliveira, Monica D. & Bevan, Gwyn, 2008. "Modelling hospital costs to produce evidence for policies that promote equity and efficiency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 185(3), pages 933-947, March.
    16. Getzen, Thomas E., 2000. "Health care is an individual necessity and a national luxury: applying multilevel decision models to the analysis of health care expenditures," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 259-270, March.
    17. Lurås, Hilde, 2009. "General Practice: Four Empirical Essays on GP Behaviour and Individuals’ Preferences for GPs," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2004:1, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    18. Antonio Clavero Barranquero & Mª. Luz González Alvarez, 2005. "A survey of econometric models to analyze the demand and utilisation of health care," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 173(2), pages 129-162, June.
    19. Grytten, Jostein & Sorensen, Rune, 2003. "Practice variation and physician-specific effects," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 403-418, May.
    20. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11717 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Yiannakoulias, Nikolaos & Hill, Michael D. & Svenson, Lawrence W., 2009. "Geographic hierarchies of diagnostic practice style in cerebrovascular disease," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 1985-1992, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Medical practice variation; Multilevel analysis; Upper respiratory tract infections; Rhinopharyngitis; Antibiotics; General practitioners; Panel; France;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:irh:wpaper:dt18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jacques Harrouin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/credefr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.