AUTHOR=Gillani Ali Hassan , Omer Sumaira , Arshad Hafsa , Liu Wenchen , Chen Chen , Bashir Sadia , Ahmed Asma Bashir , Munir Abubakar , Saeed Amna , Bashir Kamran , Fang Yu
TITLE=Awareness and Attitudes of the Pakistani Population With Regard to Physician–Pharmaceutical Company Interaction: A Cross-Sectional Study
JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pharmacology
VOLUME=12
YEAR=2022
URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.787891
DOI=10.3389/fphar.2021.787891
ISSN=1663-9812
ABSTRACT=Objective: To determine the awareness and attitudes of the Pakistani population regarding physician–pharmaceutical company interactions.
Methods: The data were collected from primary health care clinics and pharmacy outlets located within cities of six randomly selected districts of the Punjab Province. Those individuals (age ≥18 years) who have just completed their visit to the physician and well understand Urdu language were approached. Descriptive analysis was performed for all variables by using SPSS (IBM version 26).
Results: A total of 3,852 participants fully completed the study out of 4,301 (response rate 89.5%). Of those, 30.9% were female; two-thirds (66.7%) were aware of drug representatives’ visits to clinics. The majority were aware of pharmaceutical company material presence (or absence) in the physicians’ rooms (56.6%), company items with logos (66.8%), patient education materials (73.4%), and 60.8% thought that receiving gifts from companies was “wrong/unethical” practice for physicians, which was lower in comparison to other professions such as judges to accept gifts from lawyers (65.6%) and professional sports umpires to acknowledge gifts (64.3%). A minority said that they have lower trust on physicians for using drug company notepads or pens (16.7%), going on trips sponsored by the company (16.7%), accepting gifts <15,000 PKR (90.3 US$) (26.7%), and accepting gifts >15,000 PKR (90.3 US$) (40.0%).
Conclusion: Survey participants were well aware of physician–pharmaceutical company interactions. Participants were more knowledgeable regarding the pharmaceutical company presence (or absence) in physicians’ offices than about gift-related practices of physicians. Trust on the physician was not affected by small gifts but by the large gifts.