| The objectives of this descriptive study were to determine factors affecting regular prescribing drugs of physicians in the opinion of drug detailers and to compare the opinion of drug detailers who have different gender. Data were collected by self-developed questionnaire during October- December, 2015. Eight questionnaires were sent to drug detailers of original brand name drugs in 6 university hospitals and 26 regional hospitals. Two hundreds and forty four questionnaires were sent to 26 pharmaceutical companies. Totally, 256 and 244 questionnaires were sent to hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, respectively. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and t-test.
One hundred and four questionnaires were returned (23.2%). The 5 most found factors affecting regular prescribing drugs of physicians in the opinion of drug detailers were having knowledge of drug and can answer doctor questions of drug detailers, providing reliable academic documents to support drug detailing, communication skills and ability to persuade of drug detailers, strength over competitor and appropriate cost of the drug (means equal 4.62, 4.51, 4.43, 4.41 and 4.33; respectively, maximum score =5)
The 5 least found factors affecting regular prescribing drugs of physicians in the opinion of drug detailers were providing fund or gifts based on number of new patients receiving drugs, gender of drug detailers, gender of doctors, providing fund or gifts based on quantity of drug ordered and age of drug detailers (means equal 2.62, 2.74, 2.76, 2.83 and 2.89 33; respectively, maximum score = 5).
In addition, study showed that female drug detailers significantly indicated these factors affecting regular prescribing drugs of physicians more than male drug detailers; providing example drugs used in hospitals and exchange of drugs in case of expired medicine (p-value =0.006 and 0.009; respectively). In contrast, the male drug detailers significantly indicated these factor affecting regular prescribing drugs of physicians more than female drug detailers; providing fund for education training in the country and appropriate cost of drugs (p-value = 0.040 and 0.041; respectively).
The study showed that some drug promotional activities of drug detailers to physicians may be inappropriate or unethically. Therefore, policy makers may use information from his study to set criteria or guidelines to control inappropriate promotional activities of pharmaceutical companies. |