Influence of drug promotion by medical representatives on physician's drug prescription pattern

Advertising is an art of arresting one's intelligence long enough to make money out of it. Doctors interact with the pharmaceutical industry in various ways. Most common are direct face-to-face visits from company representatives. The more a drug is promoted either through pharmaceutical sales representatives or journal advertisements, the more it may influence physician's prescribing habits. As the major source of information to a majority of doctors and pharmacists, MRs have a role in helping practitioners to know about the drugs available in the market and their costs. It is the practitioner's duty to use MRs while taking care not to be unduly influenced by their sales pitch. We planned to conduct this study to find out the influence of drug promotion by medical representatives on physician's drug prescription pattern. Two tools of research namely the questionnaire and the structured interviews were decided to be used. On the basis of exploratory research and theoretical perspectives gained, a questionnaire was developed and pretested for improvement and administered to the physicians. Majority of physicians mentioned MR as the commonest source of drug information. Because of drug promotion by MR, physicians changed their previously held opinion about the brand is of great concern. The fact that majority of the physicians admitted of getting influenced by the promotion by MR and some of the physician's decision making was compromised by the drug promotion by MR is a matter of enormous importance and worry. Majority of the physicians never changed their previously held opinion about the drug, but this finding indicated the possibility of such compromise and change in the decision by rest of the physicians and this is a matter of great concern. Providing continuing education through organization other than companies would decrease the dependency of physicians on drug companies’ education programmes. Overall, the main objective would be to change the attitude of physicians and raise the ethical standards. Our primary interests in patients care require that we all practitioners, academia, industry and the government work together to improve the quality of information about prescribing drugs.