Abstract

EVALUATION OF THE RATIONALITY OF DRUG PROMOTIONAL LITERATURE IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Dr. Satyendra Kasyap. J.V ¹, *Dr. Srikanth², Dr. Niveditha³

ABSTRACT

Drug promotional literature is one of the important method of providing information about the drug to physicians. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), medicinal drug promotion should be reliable, accurate, truthful, informative, balanced and up to date. The present study was undertaken with an objective to investigate whether the information in drug promotional literature were in accordance with the World Health Organization criteria. This was a cross-sectional study conducted in the outpatient department of endocrinology in a tertiary care hospital in south India. A total of 150 promotional literatures were evaluated. The information was recorded and analyzed using Microsoft Excel (2007 version). Pharmaceutical drug promotional literature did not follow the WHO guidelines. Generic name was mentioned in 95% of the literature. 29% of the claims were without the reference. 88% did not mention the adverse drug reactions and 89% did not mention the precautions and contraindications. 88% mentioned the amount of active ingredient present but only 12% mentioned the adjuvant s which may cause adverse drug reactions. 8% of the bar diagrams did not start from zero. First ever, the only, power were the most common exaggerating words used. Physicians should critically appraise the promotional literature made by pharmaceutical companies.

Keywords: Drug advertisements, promotional literature, pharmaceutical marketing, Drug information services.