Evidence map›Paper›PMID 26624596›Full record

ArticleThe West Indian medical journal2015

Confidence in Prescription Writing among Junior Physicians in Trinidad and Tobago.

D Ignacio, P Sealy, Y Clement

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The West Indian medical journal, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
0.5field-weighted citation impact, top 28% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

D IgnacioSchool of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. Diane.ignacio@sta.uwi.edu.
P SealySchool of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
Y ClementPharmacology Unit, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
University of the West Indies · TT

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundA fundamental skill in the practice of medicine is the ability to safely and rationally prescribe drugs. This research aims to estimate the percentage of newly registered medical officers who reported confidence in writing prescriptions.

methodsA questionnaire was distributed to 200 medical officers employed at public health tertiary institutions throughout Trinidad and Tobago. These comprised medical interns (provisionally registered) and house officers (fully registered). Participants indicated their confidence or reluctance to prescribe with or without supervision. Estimates and comparisons between the two groups were obtained using Fisher's exact and Chi-squared tests.

resultsThe response rate was 73.5%. More medical interns (68%; n = 41) than house officers (56%; n = 42) stated that they were 'Confident' or 'Very Confident' (p = 0.126) to prescribe. Approximately eighty-four per cent (83.6%; n = 51) of medical interns and 89.2% (n = 66) of house officers felt confident to prescribe antibiotics (p = 0.465). A greater percentage of medical interns (84.2%; n = 50) than house officers (66.7%; n = 49) agreed that undergraduate training equipped them to write prescriptions safely and rationally (c² = 6.17, df = 1; p = 0.012).

conclusionsWhile most recent medical graduates felt confident about their prescription writing, there is a need to objectively measure this ability.

Identifiers

PMID26624596
PMCPMC4909077
OpenAlexW2416999162

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.