GPs identified as not adhering to the guidelines by the prescribing indicators often had high scores on the self-report instruments. Correlations between 0.20 and 0.55 were observed among indicators based on aggregated prescribing data and those based on individualized data. The agreement for identifying low adherence was small, with kappa values ranging from 0.19 to 0.30. Conclusions Indicators based on self-report instruments seem to overestimate guideline adherence. Indicators assessing prescribing quality at an aggregated level give clearly different results, as compared to indicators evaluating prescribing data on an individual patient level.
Caution is needed when using such prescribing indicators to identify low adherence to guidelines.
Further validation studies using a gold standard comparison are needed to define the best possible indicator.