Assessment of the practice of direct to prescriber medicine promotion in Dar es salaam

Background: Globally pharmaceutical companies spend one third of their revenue for marketing purposes, which is roughly twice of what they spent in research and development. Detailing prescribers plus free samples (personal selling) are the most effective promotional methods. Prescribers all over often believes that they are immune to promotional strategies used by medical representatives (MRs) whose mode of remuneration has been associated with volume of sales achieved. The Pharmacy Council (PC) and Tanzania Foods and Drugs Authority (TFDA) are the regulatory bodies responsible for registration of MRs and medical adverts respectively but evidences shows that only few of them have been registered. Objective: To assess the practice of direct to prescriber medicines promotion in Dar Es Salaam Methodology: This was a descriptive cross-sectional survey, which was conducted in a purposive sample of 11 public hospitals and health centers and 13 randomly sampled private hospitals and health centers. Structured questionnaires and interview guides were used to collect data from a convenient sample of 178 prescribers and 12 MRs respectively. 17 Brochures collected from prescribers were assessed for completeness of information with the WHO requirements. An SPSS program and thematic content approach methods were used for analysis of quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Results: Nearly all prescribers (99.4%, 176/178) were visited by MRs. The intention of majority prescribers (77.5%) was to obtain knowledge. Only the indication was mentioned often to 82% prescribers, prescribers (54.5%) claimed the practice had minimum influence on their prescribing. Only 10% prescribers had Standard Treatment Guideline (STG) despite the fact that 66.3% prescribers mentioned it as their preferred reference material About 75 %( 9/12) MRs had average knowledge of the drug they were promoting. Only 41% (7/17) brochures contained safety information’s which include contraindications and precautions. Conclusion: Although prescribers believed they were not influenced, and the main reasons for accepting MRs was to obtain knowledge. Majority of the prescribers received incomplete information from MRs who had average knowledge about the drug they were promoting. Generally, the practice of direct to prescriber medicine promotion in Dar Es Salaam was not good especially in public facilities