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Health services research
Research
Awareness and attitudes of the Lebanese population with regard to physician–pharmaceutical company interaction: a survey study
  1. Ahmad Ammous1,
  2. Savo Bou Zein Eddine1,
  3. Alia Dani1,
  4. Jana Dbaibou1,
  5. Jose M El-Asmar1,
  6. Liane Sadder1,
  7. Elie A Akl2,3
  1. 1Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
  2. 2Department of Internal Medicine, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
  3. 3Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Elie Akl; ea32{at}aub.edu.lb

Abstract

Objective To assess the awareness and attitudes of the general public in Lebanon regarding the interactions between physicians and pharmaceutical companies.

Setting Primary healthcare clinics and shopping malls in the Greater Beirut Area.

Participants 263 participants completed the questionnaire, of whom 62% were female and 38% were male. Eligible participants were Arabic-speaking or English-speaking adults (age≥18 years) residing in Lebanon for at least 5 years.

Primary and secondary outcome measures Awareness, attitudes and beliefs of the general public.

Results 263 out of 295 invited individuals (89% completion rate) completed the questionnaire. While the majority of participants were aware of pharmaceutical company presence (or absence) in physicians' offices (range of 71–76% across questions), smaller percentages were aware of gift-related practices of physicians (range of 26–69% across questions). 40% thought that the acceptance of small gifts or meals by physicians is wrong/unethical. The percentage of participants reporting lower trust in physicians due to their participation in various pharmaceutical company-related activities ranged from 12% to 45% (the highest percentage being for large gifts). Participants who reported receiving free medication samples were significantly more likely to consider physicians' acceptance of small gifts as ‘not a problem’ than ‘unethical’ (OR=1.53; p=0.044).

Conclusions Participants in our survey were generally more aware of pharmaceutical company presence (or absence) in physicians' offices than of gift-related practices of physicians. While the level of trust was not affected for the majority of participants for various types of interactions, it was affected the most for accepting large gifts.

  • PUBLIC HEALTH
  • ETHICS (see Medical Ethics)
  • HEALTH SERVICES ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT
  • MEDICAL ETHICS
  • attitudes

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013041

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    Footnotes

    • AM, SBZE, AD, JD, JME-A and LS contributed equally to the work and qualify as first authors.

    • Contributors EA, AA, SBZE, AD, JD, JME-A and LS contributed to the conception and design of the search strategy and to the data abstraction, data synthesis and manuscript drafting. AA, SBZE, AD, JD, JME-A and LS were responsible for interpretation of results. EA, AA, SBZE, AD, JD, JME-A and LS were responsible for manuscript review and approval.

    • Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. The Faculty of Medicine at the American University of Beirut paid the publication charges. The authors would like to thank Dr. Mohamed Sayegh for his support.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the American University of Beirut approved this study.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement No additional data are available.