Two errors occurred in this paper by Paramjit S Gill and others (12 December, pp 1590-4). The first sentence in the results subsection “Characteristics of responders by group” on page 1592 should have read: “Table 3 shows that Asian doctors who qualified in the United Kingdom (group 1) were significantly younger than doctors in the other groups. Also, Asian doctors had a higher proportion of patients who were from deprived wards.” In table 4 (top of page 1593) the prescribing variables adjusted for confounding factors were calculated incorrectly. The correct values are given below. However, the overall conclusions—that there were no differences between the three groups in their prescribing practice—remain valid as, after Bonferroni correction, no differences in mean generic prescribing were detected (see table 1).
Table 1.
Differences in mean generic prescribing between groups after Bonferroni correction
| Variable | Mean (95% CI) difference in generic prescribing | T statistic | P value (Bonferroni) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group 1−group 2 | −4.22 (−9.39 to 0.96) | −1.97 | 0.16 |
| Group 1−group 3 | 0.17 (−5.60 to 5.91) | 0.07 | 1.00 |
| Group 2−group 3 | 4.39 (−0.37 to 9.16) | 2.23 | 0.08 |
Table 4.
Prescribing variables of 155 single handed general practitioners who responded to questionnaire by ethnicity and country of qualification. (Values are means (95% CI) unless stated otherwise)
| Difference
|
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Variable | Group 1 (n=42)* | Group 2 (n=58)† | Group 3 (n=55)‡ | Adjusted R2 | P value |
| Prescribing cost (cost per ASTRO-PU) | |||||
| Unadjusted | 16.61 (15.29 to 17.93) | 17.11 (16.05 to 18.16) | 17.64 (16.52 to 18.73) | 0.46 | |
| Adjusted§ | 17.27 (14.13 to 20.41) | 18.21 (14.41 to 22.01) | 17.87 (12.41 to 23.33) | 0.32 | 0.53 |
| Prescribing frequency (No of items per ASTRO-PU) | |||||
| Unadjusted | 6.61 (5.98 to 7.25) | 6.37 (5.90 to 6.84) | 7.96 (7.27 to 8.65) | 0.0003 | |
| Adjusted§ | 6.24 (4.09 to 8.39) | 6.50 (4.13 to 8.87) | 7.13 (3.71 to 10.55) | 0.34 | 0.15 |
| Generic prescribing (% of drugs that were generic) | |||||
| Unadjusted | 46.26 (42.73 to 49.78) | 48.47 (45.07 to 51.87) | 43.49 (40.97 to 46.02) | 0.07 | |
| Adjusted§ | 36.85 (17.68 to 56.02) | 41.07 (23.54 to 58.60) | 36.68 (16.08 to 57.28) | 0.23 | 0.04 |
Asian, qualified in United Kingdom.
White, qualified in United Kingdom.
Asian, qualified in Indian subcontinent.
Adjusted for appropriate variables mentioned in the text.