Background The pharmaceutical industry plays a key role in drug discovery and is considered useful regards to informing the health care workers health care workers about new medicines. Investigations concerning health care workers to industry interactions are less common. The objective of this study is to determine levels of knowledge, attitude and perception towards regulation of pharmaceutical promotion among healthcare practitioners in Zimbabwe. Methods A cross-sectional study was used and 330 healthcare practitioners were enrolled into the study. Data collection was done through combined face-to-face interviews and web-based online survey. The relative importance index score and used as a measure of knowledge, attitude and perception levels towards pharmaceutical promotion. Univariate and bivariate analysis was performed using STATA software package. Results Our study estimated that 95%, 67%, and 90% of the healthcare practitioners in Zimbabwe have a favourable (i.e. > 65%) relative importance index score of knowledge, attitudes, and perception, respectively, towards regulation of pharmaceutical promotion. Further exploration of the data indicated that the factors that had an association with the knowledge, attitude and perception levels towards regulation of pharmaceutical regulation at 5% level of significance include health care workers’ profession, gender, education level, the nature of the working institution and the number of prescriptions involved per week. Conclusion In conclusion, the findings of this study highlighted that in general the health care workers in Zimbabwe have higher levels of knowledge, attitude and perception towards regulation of pharmaceutical promotion, though the attitudes levels weres a  bit lower compared to other domains.

BackgroundThe pharmaceutical industry plays a key role in drug discovery and is considered useful regards to informing the health care workers health care workers about new medicines. There are growing concerns related to regulating promotion of pharmaceutical products and there is notable evidence to suggest it has a significant impact health care workers’ decision-making. Investigations concerning health care workers to industry interactions are less common. The objective of this study is to determine levels of knowledge, attitude and perception towards regulation of pharmaceutical promotion among healthcare practitioners in Zimbabwe. MethodsA cross-sectional study was used and 330 healthcare practitioners were enrolled into the study. Data collection was done through combined face-to-face interviews and web-based online survey. The study was approved for ethics by the Joint Research Ethics Committee. We calculated the relative importance index score and use as a measure the of knowledge, attitude and perception levels towards pharmaceutical promotion. Univariate and bivariate analysis was performed using STATA software package. ResultsOur study estimated that 95%, 67%, and 90% of the healthcare practitioners in Zimbabwe have a favourable (i.e. >65%) relative importance index score of knowledge, attitudes, and perception, respectively, towards regulation of pharmaceutical promotion. Further exploration of the data indicated that the factors that had an association with the knowledge, attitude and perception levels towards regulation of pharmaceutical regulation at 5% level of significance include health care workers’ profession, gender, education level, the nature of the working institution and the number of prescriptions involved per week. ConclusionIn conclusion, the findings of this study highlighted that in general the health care workers in Zimbabwe have higher levels of knowledge, attitude and perception towards regulation of pharmaceutical promotion, though the attitudes levels was lower compared to other domains. Further studies aimed at understanding or evaluating various aspects for the regulation of pharmaceutical promotion are recommended in order to complement the findings of this study.