Economic information in clinical decision-making: focus group discussions with Finnish general practitioners and patients

Objectives To study the factors that influence physicians’ and patients’ use of, and willingness to use, economic information in clinical decision-making, and examine physicians’ views on whether clinical practice guidelines can support its use. Design Semistructured focus group discussions with an inductive content analysis. Setting Finnish health centre general practitioners (GPs) and adult patient representatives, five groups of each. Participants 22 GPs and 15 patient representatives. Results In the GP groups, five factors involved in using economic information in clinical decisions were raised: the issue of who pays, knowledge about cost information, the cost-benefit ratio of treatments, care planning and health economic understanding. Concerning the inclusion of economic information in clinical guidelines, GPs raised themes including the content and means of presentation of economic information, and advantages and challenges related to the integration of economic information into clinical guidelines. In the patient groups, the identified themes related to seeing the costs of treatments, the organisation of healthcare services, inclusion of cost information in clinical guidelines, patient information and support, and cost containment in healthcare. Conclusions The study suggests that GPs and patients are willing to use economic information in clinical decision making. It also implies a need for easily accessible and understandable economic information, and that clinical guidelines may be a good way to support this. In addition, the study highlights the need for education on the economic aspects of healthcare for physicians.