Cargando…

Physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in Yemen: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: The pharmaceutical industry invests heavily in promotion, and it uses a variety of promotional strategies to influence physicians’ prescribing decisions. Within this context, medical representatives (MRs) are the key personnel employed in promoting their products. One significant consequ...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Al-Areefi, Mahmoud Abdullah, Hassali, Mohamed Azmi, Ibrahim, Mohamed Izham b Mohamed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3765182/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23962304
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-331
_version_ 1782283248290758656
author Al-Areefi, Mahmoud Abdullah
Hassali, Mohamed Azmi
Ibrahim, Mohamed Izham b Mohamed
author_facet Al-Areefi, Mahmoud Abdullah
Hassali, Mohamed Azmi
Ibrahim, Mohamed Izham b Mohamed
author_sort Al-Areefi, Mahmoud Abdullah
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The pharmaceutical industry invests heavily in promotion, and it uses a variety of promotional strategies to influence physicians’ prescribing decisions. Within this context, medical representatives (MRs) are the key personnel employed in promoting their products. One significant consequence of the interactions between physicians and medical representatives is a conflict of interests which may contribute to the over prescribing of medications and thus negative effects on patients’ health and economics. There is limited detailed information published on the reasons why physicians interact with pharmaceutical representatives. This study aims to qualitatively explore physicians’ attitudes about interactions with medical representatives and their reasons for accepting the medical representatives’ visits. METHODS: In-depth interviews were used to gain a better understanding of physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits. A total of 32 physicians from both private and public hospitals were interviewed. The recordings of the interviews were transcribed verbatim and subject to thematic analysis using a framework analysis approach. RESULTS: The present qualitative study found that the majority of the physicians had positive interactions with medical representatives. The physicians’ main reasons stated for allowing medical representatives’ visits are the social contacts and mutual benefits they will gain from these representatives. They also emphasized that the meeting with representatives provides educational and scientific benefits. A few physicians stated that the main reasons behind refusing the meeting with medical representatives were lack of conviction about the product and obligation to prescribe medicine from the representative company. Most of the physicians believed that they were under marketing pressure to prescribe certain medicines. CONCLUSIONS: Although physicians are aware that the medical representatives could influence their prescribing decision, they welcome representatives to visit them and consider receiving free samples, gifts and various kinds of support as a normal practice. The findings provided insight into possible target areas for educational interventions concerning pharmaceutical marketing. Such a finding will provide the basis for policymakers in the public and private health sector in Yemen to develop a suitable policy and regulations in terms of drug promotion.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3765182
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2013
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-37651822013-09-07 Physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in Yemen: a qualitative study Al-Areefi, Mahmoud Abdullah Hassali, Mohamed Azmi Ibrahim, Mohamed Izham b Mohamed BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: The pharmaceutical industry invests heavily in promotion, and it uses a variety of promotional strategies to influence physicians’ prescribing decisions. Within this context, medical representatives (MRs) are the key personnel employed in promoting their products. One significant consequence of the interactions between physicians and medical representatives is a conflict of interests which may contribute to the over prescribing of medications and thus negative effects on patients’ health and economics. There is limited detailed information published on the reasons why physicians interact with pharmaceutical representatives. This study aims to qualitatively explore physicians’ attitudes about interactions with medical representatives and their reasons for accepting the medical representatives’ visits. METHODS: In-depth interviews were used to gain a better understanding of physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits. A total of 32 physicians from both private and public hospitals were interviewed. The recordings of the interviews were transcribed verbatim and subject to thematic analysis using a framework analysis approach. RESULTS: The present qualitative study found that the majority of the physicians had positive interactions with medical representatives. The physicians’ main reasons stated for allowing medical representatives’ visits are the social contacts and mutual benefits they will gain from these representatives. They also emphasized that the meeting with representatives provides educational and scientific benefits. A few physicians stated that the main reasons behind refusing the meeting with medical representatives were lack of conviction about the product and obligation to prescribe medicine from the representative company. Most of the physicians believed that they were under marketing pressure to prescribe certain medicines. CONCLUSIONS: Although physicians are aware that the medical representatives could influence their prescribing decision, they welcome representatives to visit them and consider receiving free samples, gifts and various kinds of support as a normal practice. The findings provided insight into possible target areas for educational interventions concerning pharmaceutical marketing. Such a finding will provide the basis for policymakers in the public and private health sector in Yemen to develop a suitable policy and regulations in terms of drug promotion. BioMed Central 2013-08-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3765182/ /pubmed/23962304 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-331 Text en Copyright © 2013 Al-Areefi et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Al-Areefi, Mahmoud Abdullah
Hassali, Mohamed Azmi
Ibrahim, Mohamed Izham b Mohamed
Physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in Yemen: a qualitative study
title Physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in Yemen: a qualitative study
title_full Physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in Yemen: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in Yemen: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in Yemen: a qualitative study
title_short Physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in Yemen: a qualitative study
title_sort physicians’ perceptions of medical representative visits in yemen: a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3765182/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23962304
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-13-331
work_keys_str_mv AT alareefimahmoudabdullah physiciansperceptionsofmedicalrepresentativevisitsinyemenaqualitativestudy
AT hassalimohamedazmi physiciansperceptionsofmedicalrepresentativevisitsinyemenaqualitativestudy
AT ibrahimmohamedizhambmohamed physiciansperceptionsofmedicalrepresentativevisitsinyemenaqualitativestudy