Table 3 Belief statements that relate to the comparator featured in the audit and feedback letter

The target is not meaningful (benchmarking)

“People like me are never going to believe we’re going to get down to the one quarter quartile. Id be thrilled if I even got down to the 50% quartile” – PHO Trial, 537

“I don’t disagree with the target. But I also can’t see 50% of my prescriptions being totally useless. Because if I did, then what am I doing here? But I do think that I could reduce - there are areas that I - when I’m looking closely at it, that I think I can do better. And prescribe less. And really encourage people to wait.” - PHO 4255

“I’m more than willing to try and do better compared to my peers. I’m certainly not going to put a ton of effort trying to get into what somebody who crunched numbers says is an achievable target, because they could have picked anything…I have no idea what they’re using as a goal and whether it’s even semi-achievable for me.” – PHO Trial, 537

Being near-average is desirable (Performance level)

“I was happy to know that at this point, I am below the average prescriber, I’ll be at somewhat above the achievable target. And I felt good about it.” – PHO Trial, 3470

“I’m below the average. I’m OK with that. So I didn’t concentrate as much on the achievable target. Is the achievable target the ideal amount you should be prescribing? Or is it just, let’s try to aim for this?” – PHO Trial, 4257

“Well, I’m doing better than the average.” If you concern the number of prescriptions as – if the average is fairly good then I’m doing a little bit better than that, so that was my thought. – PHO Trial, 1797

Some physicians are under-prescribing (Clinical appropriateness)

“The lowest prescribing quartile, physicians, maybe they’re under prescribing, who knows. But overall, I do believe that there is an issue with over prescribing. So at least to reach towards that target is a good idea.” – PHO Trial, 4772