Healthcare professionals are highly exposed to pharmaceutical marketing activities.
Evidence shows that exposure to information from pharmaceutical companies does not lead to net improvements in prescribing, but can negatively affect prescribing and professional behaviour. Education about pharmaceutical promotion can affect trainees’ awareness and attitudes, which helps counter the influence of promotional practices.
Healthcare professionals come into contact with promotional materials during their studies. However, most medical students do not obtain adequate education on how to critically respond to pharmaceutical promotion. This leaves many healthcare practitioners unprepared for ethically challenging situations that ultimately impact their ability to objectively prescribe, or advise patients about, medicines.
85.2% of medical students recently surveyed in France (n=2,101) reported feeling inadequately educated about conflicts of interest arising from interactions with the pharmaceutical industry. Being able to identify promotional activities and to understand their impact to medical practice enables critical appraisal.
In not helping (future) healthcare practitioners to develop such skills, practitioners may be left to interpret misinformation as fact and to prescribe or dispense specific medicines where other treatment options should be considered.
This rebranded guide and associated workshops and webinars have been developed to address this oversight by providing an overview of pharmaceutical marketing practices and the ethical issues that arise from them.
Join our upcoming webinar to learn more about how pharmaceutical companies are increasingly using digital platforms to promote their brand and reach consumers. Register here.