| Unethical drug promotion practices of drug detailers may induce inappropriate prescribing. The objectives of this descriptive study were to determine perceptions of hospital pharmacists on behaviors of ethical drug promotion practice of drug detailers and to compare the perceptions of regional/general hospital pharmacists with the perceptions of community pharmacists on the behaviors. Data were collected by self-developed questionnaire during November- December, 2015. Two questionnaires were sent to each hospital. Totally, 232 and 448 questionnaires were sent to regional/general hospitals and community hospitals, respectively. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, Chi-square test and t-test.
Seventy two and 113 questionnaires were sent back from regional/general and community hospitals, respectively. In general, a pharmacist met drug detailers about 15 times per month. The 3 most found behaviors of ethical drug promotion practice of drug detailers were providing information of generic/brand names (99.3%), content of active ingredients (96.6%), and provide stationary (96.6%). The 3 least found behaviors of ethical drug promotion practice of drug detailers were providing fund to support research without notifying the hospital (8.1%), fund to support private travelling aboard (9.5%), and promoting drugs to medical students (12.2%). In addition, the study found that regional/general hospital pharmacists indicated that they significantly found these behaviors in drug detailers more than community pharmacists= having sufficient basic knowledge of drug detailer; providing information of adverse drug reaction; providing books for hospitals; providing stationary; providing medical samples for hospitals, providing food and beverage to doctors both in hospital and in private, providing food and beverage to pharmacists both in hospital and in private, providing fund for education training aboard with covering family travelling expenditure, providing fund for system development of hospitals, providing fund for general activities of hospitals, providing presents with having pictures or information of drugs, having personal relationship that related to drug promotion, and promoting drugs to medical students.
In term of frequency of found behaviors, the regional/general pharmacists indicated that they significantly found these behaviors of drug detailers more frequently than community pharmacist= providing drug information with academic documents, providing adverse drug reaction information, providing research articles that supported fund by drug company, providing medical samples for hospitals, providing food and beverage to doctors both in hospital and in private, providing food and beverage to pharmacist both in hospital and in private. The findings in this study indicated that drug detailers promoted drug unethically in some criteria. Therefore, each hospital should have appropriate criteria to control unethical drug promotion practice of drug detailers. |