The characteristics of conflict of interest in the doctor’s pharmaceutical representative Relationship

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Published Feb 6, 2022
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Vol. 100 No. 2 (2022): Issue feb 2022

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Houda Lajmi
Mokhles Lajmi
Wassim Hmaied

Abstract

Introduction : Studies addressed the influence of pharmaceutical representatives in drug prescribing habits, in terms of quality and
quantity.

Aim: To describe the representatives’ strategies, assess their impact on medical prescribing, and study the various factors influencing
doctors’ prescribing changes.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study including 70 participants. All of them had an anonymous questionnaire to determine
their socio-demographic data, the pharmaceutical representative visits details, the influence of gifts on the medical prescription, and the
predictive factors of this influence. We also analyzed the solutions to alleviate the conflict of interest.

Results: We found that 52.8% of participants thought that gifts were the source of an ethical dilemma and 85.7% of them thought that the
priority of the pharmaceutical representative was the promotion of the product rather than the scientific interest. However, 68.5% of them
thought that the gifts were useful and therefore we can continue to receive them. Nineteen participants (27.1% of cases) thought that gifts
can modify their medical prescription. However, there were significantly more subjects (p=0.049) who thought that other colleagues would
be more influenced (72.8%). Factors that favor the prescription changing by gifts, were age (p=0.002, OR=1.2) and the number of visits
per month (p=0.015, OR=8.8).

Conclusions: There is a discrepancy between the growing awareness of this ethical issue and the daily practices of physicians who
continue to accept gifts. The absence of training in bioethics explains these results.

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