New drug prescribing by hospital doctors: The nature and meaning of knowledge

In the UK the high cost of new drugs is partly accountable for the growth in spending on prescription drugs. Most prescribing takes place in general practice and the influence of secondary care prescribing on primary care prescribing is well recognized; yet the factors that influence hospital prescribing have been little researched. Drawing on accounts of actual prescribing events from hospital doctors from a range of specialities, we investigated the processes by which new drugs come into practice, from hospital doctors’ awareness of new drugs to the assimilation and interpretation of evidential sources. The determinants of new drug prescribing were interconnected within four forms of knowledge: scientific knowledge, social knowledge, patient knowledge and experiential knowledge. Furthermore, the nature of knowledge could only be understood within its situated context. The revelation of multiple and contingent forms of knowledge highlights the problematic nature of knowledge construction within the approaches of evidence-based medicine.