The aim of this paper is to empirically analyse the responses by general practitioners to promotional activities for ethical drugs by pharmaceutical companies. Promotion can be beneficial as a means of providing information, but it can also be harmful in the sense that it lowers price sensitivity of doctors and it merely is a means of maintaining market share, even when cheaper, therapeutically...

OBJECTIVES AND METHODS Pharmaceutical policy is an increasingly costly, essential and challenging component of health system management. We sought to identify priority pharmaceutical policy issues in Canada and to translate them into research priorities using key informant interviews, stakeholder surveys and a deliberative workshop. RESULTS WE FOUND CONSENSUS ON OVERARCHING POLICY GOALS: to p...

In this article, the effects of prescription drug coverage on use are analyzed for beneficiaries of a large retiree health benefit fund in a quasi-experiment comparing new and established enrollees. Newer enrollees show an 18-percentage point greater increase in prescription drug expenditures per capita than established enrollees during the 3-year period following enrollment. This differential ...

Introduction Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) are operating in 49 states and several U.S. territories. Current methods for surveillance of prescription drug related behaviors, include the mean daily dosage of morphine milligram equivalent (MME) per patient, annual percentage of days with overlapping prescriptions per patient, and annual multiple provider episodes for multiple contr...

Ms. Friedman discusses the legal limitations placed on the consumer's ability to obtain drug prescriptions via the Internet. The article focuses on current legislative policies and regulations used to restrict access to prescription drugs over the Internet in the absence of a well-founded physician/patient relationship. The article argues that regulators might be able to satisfy the policy obje...

OBJECTIVES To find out prescription patterns of general practitioners in Peshawar. METHODS Cross-sectional survey of drug prescriptions was done at six major hospitals and pharmacies of Peshawar between April and May 2011. A total of 1097 prescriptions that included 3640 drugs, were analyzed to assess completeness, average number of drugs, prescription frequency of various drug classes, and n...

Direct to consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising is one of the fastest growing categories of advertising. Expenditures have increased from about $25 million in 1992 to nearly $2 billion in 1999. Given strong evidence of consumer-driven demand for advertised prescription drugs, research was conducted to assess the extent to which DTC prescription drug advertising provides consumers with th...

In 1969 Canada began programs at both the national and provincial levels to lower prescription drug prices. These programs may have contributed to a significant decline between 1970 and 1974 of 39 percent in the average price of 16 drugs selected for study. During this time, the average price for the same drugs in the United States declined only 1.4 percent. One major program, a change in the c...

This article reports the results of a content analysis of 23 direct-to-consumer (DTC) product-specific television prescription drug advertisements broadcast during 2001. A majority of ads used both medical and lay terms to convey medical ideas. Most gave consumers somewhat more time to absorb facts about benefits than those about risks, which could have implications for the "fair balance" requi...

Background: Although prescriptions are dispensed at discretion of medical professionals, many pharmaceutical companies use direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising to increase sales. Over-the-counter (OTC) medications are similarly marketed. Methods: We examined the content of advertisements in 38 issues of 9 popular US women's fashion magazines. We evaluated target audience, health condition, prod...