Patterns of psychoactive drug prescriptions by house officers for nonpatients

Substance abuse may be an occupational hazard for physicians, yet the mechanisms of this hazard remain obscure. The present authors tested the hypothesis that a potential source of psychoactive drugs for the physician trainees and other health professionals is prescription writing by house officers. Furthermore, the hypothesis was advanced that house officers may write significant numbers of psychoactive prescriptions for their family members and friends. Of 565 house officers at a medical center, 339 responded to a questionnaire designed to determine the number of prescriptions each had written for nonpatients in the previous eight months for several categories of psychoactive drugs. The largest number of such prescriptions was written for family members and friends, and the second largest number was for fellow house officers. Narcotics were the most frequently prescribed psychoactive drugs. When compared with their representation in the sample, first-year residents and residents in surgery and surgical subspecialties wrote significantly more psychoactive drug prescriptions than other residents. Implications of these findings for residents are discussed.