Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19846

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Magazine

Rouse R
Call for GP use of drug samples to be reviewed
Medical Observer 2004 July 305

Full text:

Researchers have called for a reassessment of how GPs use free drug samples, after studies found a high level of wastage, expired stock and concerns about their influence on prescribing.
In an audit of 20 GPs, University of Queensland researchers found that the doctors had free pharmaceutical samples worth thousands of dollars. “In all cases we found large quantities of expired stock”, school of pharmacy lecturer Dr Lisa Nissen said.
Some GPs found it “more of a hassle than a help” to use the samples, because they did not know how to label them to meet legal requirements, Dr Nissen said.
She called for a reassessment of the way drug companies supplied samples to reduce wastage and better meet GP needs.
In a related study to be presented at the National Medicines Symposium in Brisbane this week, University of Queensland research student Kristine Hall found the profession divided on the issue of accepting samples.
Samples were valued in after-hours settings when patients did not have access to a pharmacy, responses from 222 urban and rural GPs to a mailed survey showed. GPs also liked using samples for starting patients on a new medication.
However, many GPs refused to accept samples, or accepted only drugs that were relevant to their practice, and nearly one-third conceded that samples influenced their prescribing.
Some doctors felt that samples were a part of drug company advertising, and not necessarily useful to them in their prescribing, Dr Nissen said.