General practitioner‘s view on how pharmaceutical companies provide information about medicines

Aim of the study. To evaluate general practitioners view on how pharmaceutical companies present information about medicines and to determine how this information is used by doctors while prescribing them for patients. Methods. The general practitioners, who worked in private and public health centers in Kaunas city, were anonymously questioned from April to December in 2008. In total, 229 questionnaires were distributed, 133 of which were answered and returned back (the response rate was 58%). Statistical analysis of the obtained data was performed using the SPSS v. 13.0 software package. The associations between the variables were tested by Chi squared test. The hypothesis about the differences between means of two independent samples was evaluated using a criterion of Mann-Whitney test. Results. General practitioners most often get information about medicines from personal visits of medical representatives. The most effective ways of finding out the information about medicines are conferences, personal visits of medical representatives and round table meetings lead by specialists. General practitioners were most often visited by medical representatives who have doctor’s or pharmacist‘s qualifications. Almost three quaters (72.2%) of general practitioners have noticed different competence in qualification of medical representatives and those who had doctor‘s or pharmacist‘s qualification were evaluated best in providing the information about medicines. The greater part (71.4%) of general practitioners evaluates communication with medical representative as business communication. According to the opinion of general practitioners efficiency, ability to systematize information and communicative skills are the most important characteristics of representatives. Opinions of doctors working in private and public institutions were compared. It turned out that doctors working in private institutions prefer round table presentations led by specialists. Doctors working in public institutions prefer medical representatives who have pharmaceutical education, when medical representatives with other education background evaluation did not differentiated significantly. Conclusions. General practitioners most often receive the information about drugs from medical representatives. Medical representatives usually have doctor’s or pharmacist’s qualifications. The most important things in their communication are: efficiency and the representative‘s communication skills. Key words. Pharmaceutical industry, general practice doctors, medical representatives, competency, drug advertisement