ArticleThe Pan African medical journal2011
Sources of drug information and their influence on the prescribing behaviour of doctors in a teaching hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Article in The Pan African medical journal, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Factors Influencing Prescribing Decisions of Physicians: A Review.Ethiopian journal of health sciences · 2018Pooled it
- Knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of physicians in low and middle-income countries regarding interacting with pharmaceutical companies: a systematic review.BMC health services research · 2016Pooled it
- Validity of tools used for surveying physicians about their interactions with pharmaceutical company: a systematic review.BMC research notes · 2015Pooled it
- Exploring the Information Sources Consulted by Doctors at the Point of Care in Four Selected South African Referral Hospitals.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Patterns of drug-related problems and the services provided to optimize drug therapy in the community pharmacy setting.Saudi pharmaceutical journal : SPJ : the official publication of the Saudi Pharmaceutical Society · 2023Article
- Drug information-seeking behaviour among Jordanian physicians: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Article
- Pharmaceutical brochures in Lebanon: do they meet WHO recommendations?BMC primary care · 2022Article
- The Role of the Patient Information Leaflet in Patients'Medication Therapy: A Case Study within the Kumasi Metropolis of Ghana.TheScientificWorldJournal · 2020Article
- The influence of physicians' specialty on prescribing patterns at a general medicine out-patients clinic.Ghana medical journal · 2019Article
- Physician's Knowledge of Appropriate Prescribing for the Elderly-A Survey Among Family and Internal Medicine Physicians in Nigeria.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2019Article
- A quantitative insight of the interactions of prescribers with pharmaceutical organization's representatives in clinical settings of Karachi.Integrated pharmacy research & practice · 2019Article
- Pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers: Going beyond the gift - An explorative review.PloS one · 2018Review
- Physicians' perception of generic and electronic prescribing: A descriptive study from Jordan.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2014Article
- What do Libyan doctors perceive as the benefits, ethical issues and influences of their interactions with pharmaceutical company representatives?The Pan African medical journal · 2013Article
- Information seeking behavior and awareness among physicians regarding drug information centers in Saudi Arabia.Pharmacy practiceArticle
- Prescribing pattern and antibiotic use for hospitalized children in a Northern Nigerian Teaching Hospital.Annals of African medicineArticle
- Rational pharmacotherapy training for fourth-year medical students.Indian journal of pharmacologyArticle
- Development and validation of an instrument designed to measure factors influencing physician prescribing decisions.Pharmacy practiceArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPharmaceutical drug promotion is a means of informing health professionals about new drugs. The approach is often times unethical and inappropriate and may promote irrational prescribing. Dearth of information on impact of pharmaceutical drug promotion on prescribing behaviour of doctors in developing African countries has necessitated this study. We therefore aimed to determine the sources of drug information for doctors working in a teaching hospital in Nigeria and to assess the self-reported impact of the sources on their prescribing behaviour.
methodsA total of 163 doctors working at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan in Nigeria were evaluated with a questionnaire for their demographics and sources of drug information. For doctors who relied on drug promotion, they were asked to self-report and self-rate their opinion on extent of interactions with pharmaceutical companies as well as how such interactions had impacted on their prescribing behaviour. Apart from the demographics, each question was evaluated with a typical five-level Likert item. Data analyses were with simple descriptive statistics.
resultsOf the 400 doctors working at UCH, only 40.8% participated in the study. Drug information was sourced from colleagues (161, 98.8%), reference books (158, 96.9%), pharmaceutical sales representatives-PSRs (152, 93.2%), promotion materials (151, 92.6%), scientific papers/journals/internet (149, 91.4%), and drug promotion forum/product launches (144, 88.3%). Each source was highly utilized but there was no wide variation in their pattern of use. According to the self-report of over a half of the respondents, PSRs was an accurate and reliable drug information resource; PSRs increased their awareness of the promoted drugs; and their prescribing behaviours were influenced by information from PSRs.
conclusionRespondents tend to rely on a broad range of drug information resources which include potentially inappropriate resources such as PSRs. Since this study was based on self-report, the influence of drug information resources reported by the respondents on their prescribing behaviour may have been underestimated. Measures should be taken to minimize interactions between PSRs and the respondents.
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