OBJECTIVES: Satisfaction with educational outreach programs like academic detailing (AD) tends to be high among all providers, but intention to change clinical practice is a key goal when detailing providers whose clinical practice does not correspond to guidelines. This study examined whether willingness to change practice was related to prescribing appropriateness among providers who received opioid AD.

METHODS: Academic detailing visits were completed with Illinois healthcare professionals from June 2020 to August 2022 and linked to prescribing data from the Illinois Prescription Monitoring Program. Providers were grouped based on all prescriptions conforming to a recommendation of <50 morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) per day, compared to those who had any prescriptions >90 MMEs. The 10-item instrument, Provider Satisfaction with Academic Detailing (PSAD) was utilized to calculate “Satisfaction” [range 9-45] and “Willingness-to-Change (WTC)” [range 1-5] scores. T-tests for independent samples and Cohen’s effect size (d) were used to assess differences in mean Satisfaction and WTC scores.

RESULTS: A total of 116 providers participated in the AD program and completed the PSAD. The majority of providers (71.6%) had PMP prescribing data. In comparing providers with <50 MME (n=35) to >90MME (n=22), mean WTC scores were 3.5 (SD=1.1) vs 3.9 (SD=1.2) [p-value=0.18, d=0.35], and mean Satisfaction scores were 39.6 (SD=5.3) vs 41.1 (4.6) [p-value=0.28, d=0.30], respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: Prescribers who deviate from guidelines may have a greater willingness to change practice, suggesting that AD programs should prioritize inappropriate prescribers for education outreach. While results were not statistically significant, effect sizes were between small to medium; future research is needed using a larger sample size to confirm findings.