An evaluation of drug promotional literature in clinical practice

Abstract

Background: In current clinical practice, pharmaceutical companies use drug promotional literatures (DPLs) as a promotional tool to introduce new products entering into the market to medical practitioners. DPLs play a major role in providing important information about the drug to the health-care professionals and to convince them to prescribe the same. Aims and Objectives: The aims and objectives of the study are to evaluate the appropriateness of DPLs as per the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for rational drug promotion and for other information such as the pictures given and the presence of self-boasting words, if any. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted from December 2022 to May 2023 at a tertiary care teaching institute in southern Rajasthan, India. 330 DPLs, using convenient sampling, were collected in the form of hard and soft copies of flyers, leaflets, brochures, and pamphlets from various registered medical practitioners from a variety of departments and were evaluated based on the WHO guidelines. Results: A total of 330 DPLs were evaluated. Generic name was present in 98.2%, brand name in 97.9%, amount of active ingredient in 90%, name of manufacturer in 100%, and reference to scientific literature in 57.6%. About 75.5% of DPLs depicted photographs and 53% mentioned self-boasting words or phrases. Conclusion: Only few DPLs fulfilled all eleven criteria laid down by the WHO. Hence, doctors should not rely solely on promotional literature and appropriate policies must be made for vigilance of the DPLs.