Attitudes of medical students towards incentives offered by pharmaceutical companies- perspective from a developing nation- a cross sectional study

BMC Medical Ethics

Syed Farid-ul-Husnain²  Sardar Mohammed Alamzaib¹  Naseer Khan¹  Qasim Raza¹  Arun Kumar¹  Maryam Sharif¹  Farwa Ali¹  Sarah Kiani¹  Amarah Shakoor¹  Usman Tariq Siddiqui¹ 

[1] Medical student, Medical College, Aga Khan Medical University Hospital, P.O Box 3500, Stadium Road, Karachi, Pakistan;Department of Community Health Sciences, Aga Khan Medical University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan

关键词: Medical students;    Attitudes;    Incentives;    Acceptability;    Pharmaceutical companies;   

Others  :  799537
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6939-15-36

 received in 2013-10-29, accepted in 2014-04-22,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

A training physician has his first interaction with a pharmaceutical representative during medical school. Medical students are often provided with small gifts such as pens, calendars and books, as well as free lunches as part of drug promotion offers. Ethical impact of these transactions as perceived by young medical students has not been investigated in Pakistan before. This study aimed to assess the association of socio-demographic variables with the attitudes of medical students towards pharmaceutical companies and their incentives.

Methods

As part of a cross-sectional survey, a validated questionnaire previously used for assessing attitude of medical students towards pharmaceutical industry, was modified, pre-tested and distributed among consenting clinical year students at DUHS and AKU. Questions included acceptability of pharmaceutically sponsored gifts, events and tuition fee, and their impact on future prescription. Responses were graded as agree, disagree or neutral which were then scored according to the AMSA guidelines of ethical conduct.

Results

Out of a total of 353 targeted students 303 responded, corresponding to a response rate of 85.8%. Responses indicated that 42.7% students believed in no interaction with drug companies during medical school. However, 81% of students favored pharmaceutical sponsorship of student-body events/seminars at medical colleges. More than one-third of the students were comfortable receiving gifts from drug companies. Overall, the results of this study offer an interesting comparison between the students of a private medical school (AKU) and a public medical school (DUHS); AKU students exhibited a greater degree of mistrust towards drug information provided by pharmaceutical companies compared to DUHS students (p = 0.040). Furthermore, when asked if there was a need to incorporate guidelines in the undergraduate curriculum with regard to interaction with drug companies, 84.2% students at AKU agreed, compared to 54.9% at DUHS. Medical student Attitude Scores are more or less similar to each other independent of their various demographical differences.

Conclusion

This study highlights that medical students in our population have a high level of acceptability towards incentives offered by pharmaceutical industry and that formal guidance regarding the subject should be incorporated into medical curriculum.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Siddiqui et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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