Physician Prescribing Patterns of Oral Corticosteroids for Musculoskeletal Injuries

Article Figures & Data

Table 1.

Specialty and Corticosteroid-Prescribing Patterns for Survey Participants.

Specialty	Number	Percent Who Prescribe Corticosteroids for Musculoskeletal Injuries
Family practice	74	56.8
Internal medicine	13	69.2
Pediatrics	8	50.0
Physical medicine and rehabilitation	2	100.0
Sports medicine	1	0.0
Emergency medicine	1	0.0
Total	99	58.6

Table 3.

Training and Experience Characteristics of Surveyed Physicians.

Prescribe Corticosteroids	Fellowship Trained %	Certificate of Added Qualifications %	Years in Practice
Prescribe Corticosteroids	Fellowship Trained %	Certificate of Added Qualifications %	0 to 10 % (No.)	11 to 20 % (No.)	>20 % (No.)
Yes	56.9	61.8	55.2 (37)	58.8 (10)	61.5 (8)
No	43.1	38.2	44.8 (30)	41.2 (7)	38.5 (5)

Table 4.

Relative Importance of Factors for Physicians Who Prescribe and Do Not Prescribe Corticosteroids for Musculoskeletal Injuries.

Physician Factor	Mean Likert Score^*
Prescribe corticosteroids
Severity of injury	3.82
Failure of modalities (ice, electric stimulation, etc)	3.30
Failure of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication	3.24
Urgency of return to play for athlete	3.09
Failure of rehabilitative exercises	3.09
Failure of relative rest	2.96
Level of play of athlete	2.86
Do not prescribe corticosteroids
Lack of medical literature regarding efficacy	4.27
Lack of consensus on indications for use	4.13
Fear of side effects	3.81