Views and Perceptions of Medical Representatives and Physicians about the Role of Medical Representatives and Pharmaceutical Advertisement in Saudi Arabia - A Pilot Study.

Objective: Medical representatives (MRs) frequently interact with physicians who may have different perceptions about and expectations from product promotional activities by pharmaceutical companies, especially through MRs. This can affect their prescribing practice. We explored the views and perceptions of MRs and physicians about the role of MRs and pharmaceutical advertisements in Saudi Arabia. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted virtually through the ZOOM application with five MRs and five physicians from July to October 2022. The participants were recruited from the Makkah region in Saudi Arabia on a convenience sampling basis and through the snowballing method. The interviews were recorded with the consent of the participants, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analyzed. Findings: Data saturation was found to be achieved with four interviews from each group of participants. Thematic analysis generated 338 codes which were categorized into 31 subthemes. These subthemes were further categorized into 11 overarching themes: "MR daily work," "Role of MRs in healthcare and their future," "Value of MRs in healthcare," "Pros and cons of the MR career," "MRs in the COVID-19 pandemic," "Differences between the pharmaceutical companies," "Goods and not-so-goods about the MRs," "Suggestions provided by physicians for MRs and pharmaceutical companies," "Marketing strategies of different pharmaceutical companies," "Experience of MRs" and "Support provided by pharmaceutical companies." Conclusion: Our pilot study sheds light on the role of MRs and pharmaceutical advertisement from MRs' and physicians perspectives. Several recommendations can be drawn from our findings to make the interactions between MRs and physicians more effective and improve pharmaceutical advertisement, prescribing practices, and patient care.