Objective: To examine doctors' perceptions and attitudes to prescribing within the Authority Prescribing System (APS).
Design and setting: Questionnaire survey of Australian doctors' responses to a number of statements and factorial vignettes, conducted between 1 May and 30 June 2001.
Participants: A national random sample of 1200 doctors, stratified according to specialist/generalist, rural/urban and high/low prescriber: 669 (56%) responded.
Main outcome measures: Self-reported perceptions of the APS and attitudes to prescribing within the APS.
Results: 72% of doctors agreed that the APS makes effective medications available to the socioeconomically disadvantaged members of the Australian public and 50% agreed that it compromises patient privacy. Fewer agreed that authority indicators were based on the highest quality of evidence quality (40%) or medication safety (12%). Doctors placed more emphasis on the doctor-patient relationship than on the criteria for authority prescribing in their decisions about prescribing APS medications. Doctors who used computers to prescribe were more likely to agree that computers can improve the authority prescribing process.
Conclusions: This study suggests that authority-required prescribing is not achieving the stated aims of the National Medicines Policy in reducing variability in prescribing. Strategies to improve the quality of prescribing must consider the professional and ethical conundrum associated with prescribing outside of PBS/APS approved use for clinical and patient-centred reasons.