Influence of Medical Representatives on Prescribing Practices in Mekelle, Northern Ethiopia

• Published in: PloS one 2016-06, Vol.11 (6), p.e0156795-e0156795
• Main Authors: Workneh, Birhanu Demeke, Gebrehiwot, Mehari Gebregergis, Bayo, Tigist Assefa, Gidey, Meles Tekie, Belay, Yared Belete, Tesfaye, Desalegn Mergiaw, Kassa, Terefe Teshome
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Attitude of Health Personnel; Attitudes; Conflict of Interest; Cross-Sectional Studies; Data Collection - methods; Data Collection - statistics & numerical data; Decision making; Decisions; Drug Industry - statistics & numerical data; Drug screening; Drugs; Ethiopia; Family physicians; Female; Gift Giving; Health care facilities; Health centres; Health facilities; Health Personnel - statistics & numerical data; Health sciences; Health Services - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Interprofessional Relations; Logistic Models; Male; Materials selection; Medical personnel; Medicine and Health Sciences; Middle Aged; Multivariate Analysis; People and Places; Pharmaceutical industry; Pharmacy; Physicians; Physicians - statistics & numerical data; Practice Patterns, Physicians; Prescription drugs; Prescriptions - standards; Prescriptions - statistics & numerical data; Public health; Regression analysis; Research and Analysis Methods; Studies; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0156795

Drug promotion by medical representatives is one of the factors that influence physicians' prescribing decisions and choice of drugs. To assess the influence of medical representatives on prescribing practice of physicians in health facilities, Mekelle, Northern Ethiopia. Facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted enrolling all physicians working in public and private health facilities. All public and private health facilities were included and similarly, all physicians rendering services in these facilities were sampled in the study. The data were collected from February to March, 2015. Data were then entered into Epidata Version 3.1 and transferred to STATA version 12 for analysis. Both bivariable and multivariable logistic regressions were used to determine predictors. Of the ninety physicians approached in this study, 40 (48.2%) of the physicians believed that their prescribing decisions were influenced by visits of medical representatives (MRs). The odds of physicians who received gifts from MRs being influenced to prescribe their respective products was six times higher than those who reported not accepting any gifts [AOR = 6.56, 95% CI: 2.25, 19.13]. Stationery materials 23(35.4%) and drug samples 20(54.2%) were the commonest kinds of gifts given to physicians and face to face talking 45(54.2%) was the most frequent promotional methods. The finding of this study showed that around thirty-nine percent of MRs have had negative attitude toward competitors' product. Moreover, working in private health facility was also another predictor of influence of prescribing decision in the study area [AOR = 12.78, 95% CI: 1.31, 124.56]. Nearly half of the physicians working in Mekelle reported that their prescribing decisions were influenced by MRs in the last 12 months. Accepting gifts and working in private health facilities were predictors of influencing prescribing decisions. However, most MRs fails to provide adequate and accurate information regarding their products and they had a negative attitude towards the competitors' product(s).