Jones D R
J R Coll Gen Pract. 1979 Jul;29(204):417-9.
Two hundred and forty-one patients, 173 females and 68 males, completed questionnaires designed to identify their knowledge of drugs and attitudes to doctors' prescribing behaviour. These results were compared with those of 35 ancillary staff, 277 schoolchildren, 55 student nurses, 69 medical students, and 78 general practitioners. Although over 80 per cent of patients thought that heroin was a drug, only 10 per cent thought that penicillin should be so classified. Only two per cent of patients thought it was safe for doctors to prescribe without first seeing the patient, although 80 per cent of general practitioners thought that this was sometimes acceptable.Seventy per cent of doctors thought that antibiotics, tranquillizers, hypnotics, and antidepressants were over-prescribed and nearly half the patients appeared to agree with them.More patients thought that antibiotics were designed to kill viruses than bacteria, over a quarter thought that these preparations were the best form of treatment for a cold, and almost half expected diarrhoea to be treated with an antibiotic.Doctors need to spend more of their time in simple health education. By doing so they could reduce their future workload and the nation's drug bill.
241名患者（173名女性和68名男性）完成了旨在确定其药物知识和对医生开处方行为态度的问卷。这些结果与35名辅助人员、277名学童、55名实习护士、69名医科学生和78名全科医生的结果进行了比较。尽管超过80%的患者认为海洛因是一种药物，但只有10%的患者认为青霉素也应如此归类。只有2%的患者认为医生在未先看病人的情况下开处方是安全的，尽管80%的全科医生认为这种情况有时是可以接受的。70%的医生认为抗生素、镇静剂、催眠药和抗抑郁药存在过度开处方的情况，近一半的患者似乎同意他们的看法。更多患者认为抗生素是用来杀死病毒而非细菌的，超过四分之一的患者认为这些制剂是治疗感冒的最佳方式，近一半的患者期望用抗生素治疗腹泻。医生需要将更多时间用于简单的健康教育。这样做可以减轻他们未来的工作量，降低国家的药费支出。
