Doctors' Preferred Content of Questions About Prescription: A Questionnaire Survey Conducted in Itoigawa City, Niigata Prefecture

A questionnaire survey was conducted with 62 doctors from Itoigawa General Hospital to identify the content doctors would prefer in questions about prescriptions. A questionnaire was prepared based on the core pharmacy curriculum, and respondents were asked to choose the following ranked answers: “most welcomed”, “acceptable”, “unsure”, and “not welcomed”. The average rank was obtained for each of 32 items. The overall average rank was 989.5 ± 98.5. Items with a significantly lower average rank were “safety of drugs (adverse reactions and adverse events)” with an average rank of 711.3 and “actions of drugs (pharmacological action and drug interactions)” with an average rank of 754.8. In contrast, “medication and therapy policy” had the highest average rank (1194.7). These results reveal that doctors would greatly prefer to receive questions about prescriptions that are related to safety and pharmacological actions of drugs. It is anticipated that the results of this study will encourage pharmacists to ask doctors about prescription, thereby contributing to improved safety of medical care.