ArticleBMJ open2022
Community pharmacists' perception and exposure to drug promotion in Pakistan: a cross-sectional study.
Article in BMJ open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assessing the effect of educational intervention on pharmaceutical promotion: a follow-up study among medical students from Pakistan.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Using Unannounced Standardized Patients to Assess the Quality of Tuberculosis Care and Antibiotic Prescribing: A Cross-Sectional Study on a Low/Middle-Income Country, Pakistan.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Pattern of antibiotic dispensing at pharmacies according to access, watch, reserve (AWaRe) classification: multicenter study after COVID-19 waves in different districts of Pakistan.BMC research notes · 2025Article
- Assessing the effects of online educational intervention on pharmaceutical promotions: a pre-post study among medical and pharmacy students in Pakistan.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Effect of pharmaceutical promotion and incentives offered by pharmaceutical companies on the prescribing pattern of medical students: a cross-sectional study from a developing nation Pakistan.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- Cross-sectional assessment of perception and attitude of pharmacy students towards pharmaceutical promotion: a study from developing country, Pakistan.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveDrug promotion is a factor that promotes the irrational use of drugs and sometimes negatively influences the prescribing/dispensing pattern. So there was a need to assess the views about accepting gifts and attitudes/influence towards drug promotion among community pharmacists in Punjab, Pakistan.
settingAdopting a preused questionnaire, we conducted a cross-sectional multiple-site survey study. We distributed questionnaires to pharmacists in the community pharmacies to investigate the exposure, scepticism and acceptance to drug promotion as well as their perception about the appropriateness of gifts and to check if they had been taught about dealing with medical representatives. Data were analysed in simple percentages, and the χ
resultsA total 86.9% (463/533) pharmacists completed the survey. One out of four pharmacists reported being taught about the ethics of drug promotion (26.8%) and about how to interpret drug promotional material (25.0%) and were significantly associated with higher age (age 31%-35 years, 81.9%; p<0.05). More than two-thirds of the respondents found it appropriate to accept stationery (73.4%) and textbooks (70.6%) as gifts, and only 17.5% felt it was appropriate to accept direct money. Less than half of the pharmacists (47.3%) perceived drug companies were useful for gaining knowledge about new drugs. Majority (76.2%) thought these drug promotions play a role in the irrational prescribing of antibiotics and 18.6% dispensed antibiotics due to these promotions.
conclusionThe majority of pharmacists participating in this study felt it was appropriate to receive small value gifts from pharmaceutical companies. Only a small proportion of the respondents was given ethical training and education about drug promotion. Improving the syllabus and updating the pharmacist's knowledge after graduation, as part of continued pharmacy education, will eventually improve the healthcare professionals' capability to act for the patients' welfare.
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