IMPORTANCE Gifts from pharmaceutical companies are believed to influence prescribing behavior, but few studies have addressed the association between industry gifts to physicians and drug costs, prescription volume, or preference for generic drugs. Even less research addresses the effect of gifts on the prescribing behavior of nurse practitioners (NPs), physician assistants (PAs), and podiatris...

Switching branded to generic medications has become a common cost-containment measure. Although this is an important objective for health care systems worldwide, the impact of this practice on patient outcomes needs to be carefully considered. We reviewed the literature summarizing the potential clinical and economic consequences of switching from branded to generic medications on patient outco...

 A high dietary intake of phosphorus is considered to be a significant health threat for hemodialysis (HD) patients. Prescription medications, which might be a major source of phosphorus, is largely unrecognized in Japan. However, the amount of phosphorus indicated on the package label, is not quantified. In this study, the phosphorus content of 22 of the most widely prescribed medications that...

The development of mobile phone applications has become very important to companies, most of which are actively engaged in implementing mobile strategies and are developing or actively deploying portfolios of mobile phone applications. Hinchcliffe (2013) predicts that the development of mobile strategies will continue to be a major challenge and that branded mobile applications (branded apps) w...

The aim of this study was to assess the content and extent of food references and marketing within popular children's magazines in Australia. Sixteen popular Australian children's magazines were selected, as determined by readership and circulation data. Back copies of each magazine were purchased for publications released between January and December 2006 (n = 76). Each magazine was assessed f...

The objective of the study was to evaluate the bitterness, grittiness and uniformity of drug loading as measures of the quality of 12 formulations of clarithromycin dry syrup (CAMDS), comprising one branded and 11 generic products. Some of the generic CAMDS formulations were more bitter than the branded product while others had similar bitterness when tested as aqueous suspensions. Only one gen...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Topical glucocorticoid formulations are widely used for effective treatment and control of a variety of dermatoses. Mometasone furoate is a newer corticoid that has high potency but low systemic toxicity. Pharmaceutical factors are known to significantly influence potency and systemic absorption of topically applied glucocorticoids. We studied the potency of "Elocon", a topi...

PURPOSE Cigarette packaging is the most prominent form of tobacco marketing remaining in countries such as the United Kingdom. The current study examined perceptions of cigarette packaging among female youth and the potential impact of "plain" cigarette packaging regulations. METHODS A national sample of 947 16- to 19-year-old female subjects in the United Kingdom completed an online survey. ...