Prescribing Medications for Alcohol Use Disorder: A Qualitative Study of Primary Care Physician Decision Making.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Over 29 million Americans have alcohol use disorder (AUD). Though there are effective medications for AUD (MAUD) that can be prescribed within primary care, they are underutilized. We aimed to explore how primary care physicians familiar with MAUD make prescribing decisions and to identify reasons for underuse of MAUD within primary care.

Methods

We conducted semistructured interviews with 19 primary care physicians recruited from a large online database of medical professionals. Physicians had to have started a patient on MAUD within the last 6 months in an outpatient setting. Inductive and deductive thematic analysis was informed by the theory of planned behavior.

Results

Physicians endorsed that it is challenging to prescribe MAUD due to several reasons, in

SUBMITTER: Bhardwaj A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10365869 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature