Psychiatrists' knowledge and attitudes about costs of commonly prescribed treatments in psychiatry

A survey was conducted to assess psychiatrists' knowledge and attitudes reg arding the costs of various psychiatric treatments. Psychiatrists (n = 500) were randomly selected from the membership of the Ohio Psychiatric Associa tion. The survey explored several aspects of psychiatrists' knowledge of co sts, including estimated prices of 24 specific psychiatric treatments (freq uently used psychotropic medications, laboratory tests, and inpatient and o utpatient procedures) as well as their level of confidence in their estimat es. The survey also asked a series of attitude/opinion questions and specif ic demographic data. The psychiatrists (n = 265, 59% response) perceived th at knowing the costs of treatments was an important consideration when choo sing a particular treatment. Psychiatrists' actual knowledge of the costs o f treatment was inconsistent with their beliefs of the importance of knowin g the costs as well as their reported confidence in their knowledge of cost s. Information about the costs of psychiatric treatments is an important cl inical consideration and a program to improve clinicians' knowledge of the costs of psychiatric treatment could occur during residency training.