Doctors and drug companies: still cozy after all these years.
Geoff Spurling and colleagues report findings of a systematic review looking at the relationship between exposure to promotional material from pharmaceutical companies and the quality, quantity, and cost of prescribing. They fail to find evidence of improvements in prescribing after exposure, and find some evidence of an association with higher prescribing frequency, higher costs, or lower prescribing quality.
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. david.henry@ices.on.ca
David
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Henry
D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics / Q000592:standards; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics* / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014481:United States