Development and Validation of Direct-to-Physician Pharmaceutical Marketing Tool

Background: The main part of drug industry marketing activities focuses on physicians as drug prescribers, which is usually conducted by Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives (PSR) who visit the physicians. The aim of this study was development and validation of a tool for Direct-to-Physician (DTP) pharmaceutical marketing survey. Methods: In the first phase of this study, the first version of a questionnaire was developed by reviewing the related literature. Then, face and content validities of the designed questionnaire were confirmed by a panel of experts. In the next step, Convenience Sampling method was applied and the questionnaire was distributed between 297 General Practitioners and Specialists. The Cronbach’s Alpha was conducted to confirm the validity of the questionnaire and the exploratory factor analysis for derive components of physicians' attitude toward pharmaceutical sales representatives. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 22. Results: The questionnaire had 2 parts; the demographic information and Direct-to-Physician pharmaceutical marketing survey, which included 11 dimensions. The first dimension studied the frequency of PSRs' visits with physicians. The second dimension dealt with the prevalence of each recommended gifts and benefits offered by PSRs. The third dimension reviewed the strategies used by PSRs. The fourth and fifth dimensions investigated the acceptance of gifts by physicians and their colleagues. The sixth and seventh dimensions surveyed the physicians’ viewpoints about the effect of PSRs' visits and their gifts on prescribing behavior. The eighth dimension was about the effective factors on the efficiency of PSRs' visits. The last three dimensions considered the ethical viewpoints of physicians about gifts and benefits recommended by PSRs. The physicians' attitudes toward PSRs were also studied in this section. Moreover, the physicians' awareness about the domestic guidelines with regard to DTP pharmaceutical marketing was surveyed. As a result of the content validation process, 7 items were removed from the attitude section. The Cronbach’s Alpha score for the attitude and awareness sections were 0.72 and 0.83, respectively. In the attitude dimension, 5 components were determined using the exploratory factor analysis. Conclusion: The developed questionnaire is a valid tool to investigate DTP pharmaceutical marketing and can be used by other researchers