Sharrel L Pinto and Nick S Weber

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Background: Currently in health care, communication between prescribers and pharmacists routinely entails paper and a telephone. Many professional associations have strongly advocated the adoption of electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) in physicians’ clinical practices to decrease medication errors and adverse drug events. However, very few physicians have adopted this technology in the US.

Objective: To determine the relationship between Ohio physicians’ demographics and their intention to adopt e-prescribing; assess the relationships between attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control as applied to physicians’ intention to adopt e-prescribing; and identify factors that can predict physicians’ intention toward the adoption of e-prescribing.

Methods: In this exploratory cross-sectional study, we used a self-administered survey. The survey was developed based on the constructs of the Theory of Planned Behavior. It was mailed to 1500 physicians currently practicing in Ohio. Demographic information about the respondents was collected. Pearson correlation was used to assess the relationship between demographics and intention to adopt e-prescribing. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify the factors predicting intention.

Results: The overall survey response rate was 15.33% (N = 230). A significant weak negative correlation was found between physicians’ ages (r = –0.180; p = 0.007) and their intent to adopt electronic prescribing. A statistically significant negative correlation was also found between practice type (r = –0.196; p = 0.003) and the intention to adopt electronic prescribing. Attitude was the strongest predictor of intention to adopt e-prescribing (Β = 0.539; p = 0.000).

CONCLUSIONS: Physicians with more positive attitudes, positive subjective norms, and positive perceived behavioral control have a stronger intention to adopt e-prescribing.

J Pharm Technol 2011;27:168-74.