Although students were motivated to learn to prescribe, opportunities to practice the whole, contextualised task of prescribing in advance of becoming a qualified doctor were limited.
Budgetary allocations for prescribing to general practices are, however, still largely based on historical prescribing patterns.
Non-medical prescribing students must have a thorough understanding of the pharmacology of prescribing to ensure safe practice.
Another study found that there was insufficient opportunity for medical students to practice prescribing [ 7].
Some states allow NPs to practice and prescribe independently without physician involvement, while others allow NPs to practice and prescribe only with physician collaboration or supervision.
Also, it is not known whether state laws regarding permitting nurse practitioners to practice or prescribe drugs without physician oversight have impacted the cancer screening utilization climate.
Evidence suggests that when states allow NPs to practice and prescribe independently, adults obtain routine checkups at a higher frequency and have better health outcomes [24].
The high rates of comorbidity and polypharmacy among older adults further complicate the practice of prescribing to older persons.
This information was fed back to prescribers locally to improve prescribing practice and also to SAPG to identify common themes that could help shape national educational solutions as well as quality improvement projects.
To date, studies of prescribing practices to HIV-infected patients have focused on quality of HIV care [ 90, 91], but have not applied validated tools to assess for inappropriate medication use.
