Scott Watkins
Prescribing paradigms: Understanding general practitioner inclinations towards medical and social prescribing
Watkins, Scott; Barnett, Julie; Corbett, Estelle; Barden, Ruth; Kasperzyk-Hordern, Barbara; Hafner, Rebecca
Authors
Julie Barnett
Estelle Corbett
Ruth Barden
Barbara Kasperzyk-Hordern
Rebecca Hafner
Contributors
Debra Westlake
Editor
Abstract
General practitioners (GPs) face complex decisions when choosing between prescribing medication or referring patients to social prescriptions. Increasing awareness of overprescribing and the risks of polypharmacy are a key driver of patient-centred preventative approaches to healthcare. One such approach, increasingly common in the United Kingdom, is social prescribing (SP). GPs have a central role in prescribing medication or referring to a social prescription. Following a thematic analysis of data from interviews with 12 GPs, this study used the concept of mindlines to frame a consideration of their reasoning about the appropriateness of social prescriptions as adjuncts to or alternatives for medical prescriptions. We identified seven considerations that shaped their decision-making process. These factors spanned the patient’s socioeconomic circumstances, the severity of their symptoms and their expectations. Additionally, GPs factored in their time constraints, the extent to which medical options had been exhausted, and finally issues related to the SP system itself—specifically, the integration of SP workflows in GP practices and resource constraints. SP is, in theory at least, a part of the healthcare system that offers the possibility of improved health both for people and the environment. Our consideration of the role of the GP in this suggests that the challenges for design and evaluation of SP interventions that result in a reduction in medical prescriptions are considerable.
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Nov 6, 2024 |
Online Publication Date | Nov 30, 2024 |
Publication Date | Nov 30, 2024 |
Deposit Date | Dec 2, 2024 |
Publicly Available Date | Dec 3, 2024 |
Journal | Health & Social Care in the Community |
Print ISSN | 0966-0410 |
Electronic ISSN | 1365-2524 |
Publisher | Wiley |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 2024 |
Issue | 1 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1155/hsc/7964343 |
Public URL | https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/13502484 |
Files
Prescribing paradigms: Understanding general practitioner inclinations towards medical and social prescribing
(465 Kb)
PDF
Licence
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You might also like
Household disposal of pharmaceuticals: Attitudes and risk perception in a UK sample
(2022)
Journal Article
Social prescribing pilot evaluation
(-0001)
Report
Downloadable Citations
About UWE Bristol Research Repository
Administrator e-mail: repository@uwe.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2025
Advanced Search