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.