Pharmaceutical Promotions Impact on Prescribing Behavior of Primary Health Care Physicians: Taif Experience, Saudi Arabia
Journal Title: International Journal of Medical Research Professionals - Year 2017, Vol 3, Issue 1
Abstract
Background: Identifying prescribing-associated factors is of paramount interest from health, as much as social and economic standpoints. Objectives: To assess drug companies’ influence on physician’s prescription pattern as well as physician’s attitudes toward drug companies and to study other factors that may affect the prescribing behavior of physicians. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among primary health care physicians, Taif city, KSA. A structured self-administered questionnaire was utilized for data collection. It included the personal data of the participants, practice experience of the PHC physicians, factors influencing prescribing of a new drug including gifts offered by drug representatives, reference sources used for prescribing, educational experience including CME hours sponsored by drug representatives and physicians’ beliefs about impact of pharmaceutical companies on prescribing. Results: The study included 88 physicians with a response rate of 84.6%. Almost one third of them aged between 35 and 44 years (30.7%) and another one third aged 50 years and over (30.7%). More than one half of them were females (52.9%). More than three-quarters of them (78.4%) were non-Saudis. Majority of physicians (96.6%) agreed that they were affected by drug characteristics such as adverse effect, indication and efficacy and guidelines updating (93.2%) in their prescribing behaviors. Most of them agreed that they were affected by patients’ factors such as failure of current therapy and prescription requests (77.3%) as well as opinion of specialists or hospital physicians (76.1%) in their prescribing behaviors. Only 33% agreed that they were affected by drug representatives in their prescribing behavior. In case of any problem in prescription, physicians frequently or often consulted textbooks (80.7%), followed by documents and drug guides from drug representative (63.6%). Minority of physicians (ranged between 4.5% and 6.8%) agreed that gifts offered by drug representatives affected their prescription of a certain drug. More than one third (39.5%) of physicians working in PHCCs, MOH and 31.4% of those working in military hospitals compared to only 10% of those working in National Guard agreed that their prescription of a new drug is influenced by drug representative, p<0.001. More than half of non-Saudi physicians (55.1%) compared to 31.6% of Saudis disagreed that their prescription of a new drug is influenced by drug representative, p=0.027. Conclusions: Almost one third of primary care physicians in Taif were influenced by drug representative promotions that could affect their prescribing patterns. Most of them were not affected by gifts given by the representatives.
Authors and Affiliations
Ammar Eid Nahhas, Faisal Eid Nahhas, Saadallah Jaber Alzahrani, Musab Mohammed Alnefaie, Abdullah Sameer Basaba, Bassam Awadh Suliman Alhejaili, Faisal Fahad Mohammed Alharth
Keywords
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- EP ID EP541039
- DOI 10.21276/ijmrp.2017.3.1.004
- Views 71
- Downloads 0
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