Attitudes to pharmaceutical promotion techniques among healthcare professionals in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia

Abstract

Purpose: To study attitudes of health care professionals towards pharmaceutical promotion. Methods: Intervention study. 161 questionnaires were collected and analyzed after anonymous surveys of health-care professionals (physicians and residents).Results: Nearly half of surveyed participants (53% of physicians and 44% of residents) communicated with pharmaceutical representatives 1-2 times a week. The most widespread marketing technique was pen-gifting: 93.3% of physicians and 94.7% of residents admitted receiving pens at least once a year. 63.3% of physicians and 78.5% of residents had dinners at conferences once or more often during the last year. 3.2% of physicians and 12.5% of residents believed that pharmaceutical representatives had no influence on prescribing practices, about 60% of responders admitted 'minor influence', while 30% reported 'major influence'. However only 10.2% of physicians and 3.8% of residents noted significant influence of pharmaceutical promotion on their own prescribing practice. The majority of responders indicated pharmaceutical advertising materials (information from the last conference, information from pharmaceutical reps) as one of determining factors for their pharmacotherapy choice. 42.9% of physicians and 77.8% of residents considered acceptance of gifts from pharmaceutical representatives to be ethical. About half of responders considered that development of restricting policies on interactions of health care professionals with pharmaceutical representative be not needed. Post-survey of a small proportion of participants revealed two-fold increase in the number of residents who considered pharmaceutical advertising to have major influence on their colleagues' prescribing practice. There was a trend to decrease in the number of residents who considered trade/money agreements between physicians and pharmaceutical industry to be appropriate and to an increase in the number of opponents of trade/money agreements.Conclusions: Promotion techniques are widely and deeply integrated in everyday routine of health care professionals. Physicians are inclined to underestimate influence of pharmaceutical promotion on their own prescribing practice as compared with influence on their colleagues. The majority of responders use promotional information for prescribing decision-making being unaware of ethical implications of promotional interactions and unresponsive to restriction policies. Residents seem to be more responsive to anti-promotional educational intervention.

Competing and conflicting interests in the care of critically ill patients

“…In these environments it is perhaps unsurprising then, that writing prescriptions in return for illegal bribes from pharmaceutical companies remains a problem. [31, 32]…”

Relationships between physicians’ characteristics and practice-setting factors and their attitude towards drug promotion

“…Literature reported that even physicians themselves do not deny the effect of MRs on their prescribing habit . The type and frequency of interactions between physicians and MRs have received increased scrutiny from many stockholders . However, despite that, interaction between physicians and MRs continues to be among the most controversial subjects in pharmaceutical promotion studies over the last decade.…”

“…However, despite that, interaction between physicians and MRs continues to be among the most controversial subjects in pharmaceutical promotion studies over the last decade. Consequently, physicians’ attitude towards this interaction received considerable attention in the literature . However, only few studies aimed to identify physicians’ attitude towards MRs were conducted in developing countries …”

Relación entre promoción farmacéutica y prescripción de medicamentos en Perú

“…Aquí se utilizan diversas fuentes para recolectar datos numéricos tales como: encuestas, entrevistas estructuradas, observaciones, indicadores y evaluaciones de desempeño, información institucional y bases de datos nacionales (McLaughlin, Bush, & Zeeman, 2016). La presente investigación utiliza un amplio cuestionario bajo la misma óptica que has seguido previos estudios cuantitativos y se presentan alguna que guarda relación con el eje central del presente estudio, tales como: Impacto (Vancelik et al, 2007), Influencia (Caamaño, Figueiras, & Gestal-Otero, 2002;Siddiqi et al, 2011) , Percepción (Lieb & Scheurich, 2014;Zaki, 2014), Efecto (Chew et al, 2000;Mizik & Jacobson, 2004;Lieb & Scheurich, 2014;Ijoma et al, 2010) y Actitudes (Burashnikova, Ziganshin, & Ziganshina, 2008;Ventura et al, 2012) de la Promoción Farmacéutica en la prescripción de medicamentos desarrollados en diversos países en los últimos años.…”

“…Revisión de modelos de cuestionarios previos. La elaboración del cuestionario se realizó revisando diversas investigaciones publicadas que utilizaron diversos tipos de cuestionarios en diferentes años y países (Alssageer & Kowalski, 2012;Burashnikova et al, 2008;Calderón & Rabanaque, 2014;Lieb & Scheurich, 2014;Mizik & Jacobson, 2004;Sergeant et al, 1996;Vancelik et al, 2007;Ventura et al, 2012;Zaki, 2014).…”