Pharmaceutical promotions and trustworthiness on new drug prescribing among physicians in public general hospitals

Abstract

Objective: The interaction between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry influences physicians’ attitudes and prescribing behaviors. In this regard, physicians’ attitudes towards pharmaceutical promotions and their trustworthiness towards pharmaceutical representatives’ information on new drugs were explored in this study.Methods: The present study was an analysis of a cross-sectional survey of 183 physicians with different job and education hierarchies and from various clinical settings in Erbil-Iraqi Kurdistan in July 2018. The physicians were invited from the public sector, comprising a general, emergency, and pediatric hospital. The information was collected through an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire included exposure to marketing activities, motivations to contact pharmaceutical representatives, attitudes towards promotional activities, and trustworthiness of the pharmaceutical representatives’ information on new drugs.Results: Majority of the physicians reported that the information provided by pharmaceutical representatives assisted them in staying up to date or learning about new products (76.5%), but 55.7% of them trusted their medical information. In addition, most of them reported that pharmaceutical representatives prioritized the promotion of their products over patients’ benefits (70.5%). They reported that receiving promotional material and participating in promotional activities have an effect on doctors’ behaviors to prescribe a new drug, including promotional materials (55.2%); medical samples (67.8%); funding of registration costs to conferences (60.1%); participation in industry-funded researches (69.9%); and continuing medical education (69.4%). Receiving promotional materials and participation in promotional activities were considered to be ethical.Conclusions: The present study showed that most of the physicians reported the role of promotional materials and activities on physicians’ behaviors to prescribe new drugs.