Prescription monitoring software has been linked to a 19% decline in patients being prescribed monitored medicines by four or more doctors, a Medical Journal of Australia study suggests.

It is the first research assessing how Victoria’s SafeScript software, introduced in 2019, affected “multiple-prescriber episodes” — patients obtaining monitored medicines, such as opioids or benzodiazepines, from four or more doctors in a 90-day period.

However, a GP and addiction medicine specialist says the findings could reflect “low-risk” prescribers changing their behaviour, rather than a decline in dangerous doctor-shopping.

The study, based on 562 GP practices, found that “multiple-prescriber episodes” fell from 15.73 per 1000 people to 12.6 when SafeScript was launched.