[Collegial support to improve prescription patterns for addictive preparations]

Norwegian County Medical Officers monitor unsatisfactory prescription practices in relation to addictive drugs. In this context, our team has tried to reach out to colleagues with preventive guidance. Our aim was to build communications skills by promoting systematic reflection on the importance of our own attitudes and behaviour in our work as physicians. In collaboration with the Vestfold Branch of the Norwegian Medical Association and the Vestfold Addiction Clinic, the Vestfold County Medical Officer set up preventive guidance tutorials for a closed group. The County Medical Officer specifically invited 20 physicians; invitations were also sent to all other members of the Medical Association in the county. The tutorials were given in 1997-98, with a voluntary attendance of 15 physicians. An evaluation form was sent to participants two months after completion. The tutorials received a positive evaluation. The results suggest that the guidance on the whole was considered useful. Of those specifically invited, 10% (2) attended. The tutorials were meant as a practical step to helping doctors reflect more systematically on their own style of communication and understanding of pain behaviour. There is a common interest in expanding the conventional biomedical model of understanding of chronic non-malignant pain conditions, a model in which prescribing addictive drugs is quite controversial.