General practitioners’ concepts on issuing out-of-pocket prescriptions for hypnotics and sedatives in Germany

摘要

Background. In Germany, almost 50% of prescriptions for benzodiazepines and drugs as Zolpidem and Zopiclone are as out-of-pocket (OOP) prescriptions—requiring patients to buy the drug at their own expense—although almost 90% of the population has statutory health insurance covering medication costs. Objective, To understand why general practitioners (GPs) choose this prescribing method since needed medications are insurance covered, and unnecessary drugs should not be prescribed at all. Methods, In this qualitative study, 17 semi-structured interviews with GPs were conducted, audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were analysed with grounded theory to extract a model explaining the described behaviour.