Intervenção educativa em farmácias que realizam promoção comercial de produtos que competem com o aleitamento materno

Abstract

Introduction: Federal Law 11,265/2006 aims to control the advertising and marketing of foods for infants and toddlers. Commercial promotion of infant formulas, bottles, nipples and pacifiers is prohibited. Commercial promotion of dairy products and transitional foods can occur only if accompanied by phrases that warn about the possible negative influence on breastfeeding practice. Objective: To analyze the impact of an educational intervention with commercial establishments that did not comply with the Brazilian Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (NBCAL), in order to change their behavior. Methods: An intervention study was carried out in Rio de Janeiro City, Brazil, in pharmacies that in fringed NBCAL. The allocation group of each pharmacy: intervention with pharmacist (GIP); managerial intervention (GIM) and control (CG) was previously defined at random. Each pharmacy was evaluated twice, by means of an electronic device. At the first visit, the pharmacy’s compliance with NBCAL was assessed, the pharmacist or commercial manager was interviewed and an educational intervention with performed, by means of an educational material developed for this purpose. After a month, the pharmacies were assessed again to verify possible changes in their marketing practice, and their responsible was interviewed once more. The data collected were exported to the statistical program SPSS. To measure the changes in the number of pharmacies with NBCAL infraction, before and after the intervention, the McNemar Test was used. The Wilcoxon signposts test was used to compare the variation in the number of infractions per allocation group. Results: More than half of the managers and pharmacists interviewed reported not knowing NBCAL. At the first visit, 155 pharmacies were violating NBCAL. After the educational intervention there was a reduction of 16.1% (n = 25) in the number of pharmacies with infraction. There was a reduction from 18.7% to 12.9% pharmacies with violation in products whose commercial promotion is prohibited (p = 0.047) and from 92.9% to 80.5% in dairy products (p = 0.001). However, pharmacies with irregularities in the commercialization of transitional foods increased from 28.5% to 42.3% (p = 0.006). In GIP there was a statistically significant reduction in infringements related to price discounts and special exposures. Conclusion: The educational intervention with pharmacists was able to promote significant changes in commercial practices. However, in addition to educational actions, other measures need to be taken by regulatory agencies to avoid abusive marketing of products that compete with breastfeeding