Drug prescribing data used in the assessment of general practitioners’ treatment of asthma and urinary tract infection – Experience from the European Drug Education Project

ABSTRACT Describing drug treatment given by general practitioners, and quantifying changes in their prescribing behaviour due to educational intervention, were important parts of the method developed and applied by the European Drug Education Project. Based on the physicians’ prescription data, individual patients were defined as having either asthma or urinary tract infections. Prescribing indicators were established for assessing the quality (acceptable or unacceptable) of the drug treatment. The diagnose definitions and prescribing indicators are discussed in more detail in relation to feeding back individual prescribing data to educational groups of physicians to improve the quality of their drug therapy.