ArticleCanadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien2018
Drug samples in family medicine teaching units: a cross-sectional descriptive study: Part 3: availability and use of drug samples in Quebec.
Article in Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reflective practice.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2018Article
- Drug samples in family medicine teaching units: a cross-sectional descriptive study: Part 1: drug sample management policies and the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and residents in Quebec.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo draw a portrait of drug sample distribution and to assess the concordance between drug samples distributed and the medical problems encountered in the ambulatory primary health care setting.
designDescriptive cross-sectional survey. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to all health care professionals (HCPs) in family medicine teaching units (FMTUs) that kept drug samples between February and December 2013.
settingAll 33 FMTUs that kept drug samples in Quebec.
participantsHealth care professionals authorized to hand out drug samples (practising physicians, residents, pharmacists, and nurses), and managers of drug sample cabinets.
main outcome measuresDispensing practices of HCPs; number of doses of each drug contained in the sample cabinets; total market value of the samples; concordance between the drug sample categories made available and the most common medical problems encountered in primary care; and data on safe handling, ethical issues, effect of the pharmaceutical industry on prescribing behaviour, and inventory of samples.
resultsAmong 859 HCPs, 579 (67%) reported dispensing drug samples. A large proportion of dispensers (88%) were unable to find the specific drug they sought and half of them (51%) provided the patients with a drug sample even if it was not their first choice for treatment. The drug sample cabinet inventory revealed products from 292 different companies and identified a total of 382 363 medication doses for a total value of $201 872. We found gaps among types of drugs provided to patients, those the HCPs would consider useful, and those available in the cabinets.
conclusionDrug samples available in FMTUs do not meet the needs of many patients and HCPs, suggesting that the main driving force for drug sample distribution is not patient care. Policies on drug samples in FMTUs should be uniform across the province, and management should be as strict as in community pharmacies. Otherwise, prohibiting their use should be considered.
Indexed as
Identifiers
30541821PMC6371885What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.