Drug promotional activities in Nigeria: impact on the prescribing patterns and practices of medical practitioners and the implications

Abstract

Interaction between PSRs and physicians is a regular occurrence in Nigeria, influencing prescribing practices. Meals and cheap gifts were the most common items offered to physicians during their encounters with PSRs. The need for some form of regulation by professional organizations and the government was expressed by most respondents to address current concerns.

Implementation and monitoring of decisions by pharmacy and therapeutics committees in South African public sector hospitals

“…The rational use of medicines can be achieved through promoting rational prescribing, dispensing and use of medicines, by health care professionals, together with supporting informed and appropriate use of medicines by the community [2]. PTCs have worked well across countries to improve the quality and efficiency of prescribing [3][4][5][6], given concerns with promotional activities of pharmaceutical companies across countries, including low and middle-income countries [7][8][9][10][11].…”

Ongoing strategies to improve the management of upper respiratory tract infections and reduce inappropriate antibiotic use particularly among lower and middle-income countries: findings and implications for the future

“…be broken down into educational activities including (i) academic detailing with varying degrees of success and evidence, (ii) guidelines and clinical decision support systems, (iii) initiatives to delay the prescribing of antibiotics especially for URTIs, (iv) special prescription forms highlighting the importance of antibiotics in healthcare, (v) having posters in surgeries emphasizing the commitment of family doctors to reducing unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics, (vi) instigating point of care testing to determine the likely cause of the infection, (vii) instigating quality indicators (QIs) and monitoring performance against these, (vii) undertaking regular auditing of prescribing and feedback, (viii) restricting the number and prescribing of certain antibiotics, (ix) separating prescribing and dispensing, (x) and restricting pharmaceutical company activities 85 . Restricting or addressing inappropriate pharmaceutical company activities is particularly important in LMICs, where companies can be the principal source of physician education regarding antibiotics 330,331 . Selective point-of-care testing is seen as potentially beneficial in patients with URTIs 101,332 , and decision support systems have been shown to reduce the overuse of antibiotics in ambulatory care settings 333 .…”

Reported needs of information resources, research tools, connectivity and infrastructure among African Pharmacological Scientists to improve future patient care and health

“…In addition, the irrational use of medicines, and its consequences, are a growing challenge across Africa [7,35]. This has already resulted in a number of research activities including documenting the existence and functionality of drug and therapeutic committees across African countries, documenting pharmacovigilance activties among hospitals with the aim of establishing pertinent programmes to address current concerns including the over reliance on pharmaceutical companies for information on medicines [36][37][38][39][40][41], as well as the current state of antimicrobial stewardship programmes as a basis for developing programmes to improve the future use of antimicrobials in Africa given current concerns [42][43][44]. Such activities should help to reduce AMR rates, adverse drug reactions and associated increased hospitalization rates and death, and unaffordable costs of medicines among a population that predominantly pays 'out of pocket'.…”