The effects of pharmaceutical firm enticements on physician prescribing patterns. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

We examined the impact on physician prescribing patterns of pharmaceutical firms offering all-expenses-paid trips to popular sunbelt vacation sites to attend symposia sponsored by a pharmaceutical company. The impact was assessed by tracking the pharmacy inventory usage reports for two drugs before and after the symposia. Both drugs were available only as intravenous preparations and could be used only on hospitalized patients. The usage patterns were tracked for 22 months preceding each symposium and for 17 months after each symposium. Ten physicians invited to each symposium were interviewed about the likelihood that such an enticement would affect their prescribing patterns. A significant increase in the prescribing pattern of both drugs occurred following the symposia. The usage of drug A increased from a mean of 81 +/- 44 units before the symposium to a mean of 272 +/- 117 after the symposium (p less than 0.001). The usage of drug B changed from 34 +/- 30 units before the symposium to 87 +/- 24 units (p less than 0.001) after the symposium. These changed prescribing patterns were also significantly different from the national usage patterns of the two drugs by hospitals with more than 500 beds and major medical centers over the same period of time. These alterations in prescribing patterns occurred even though the majority of physicians who attended the symposia believed that such enticements would not alter their prescribing patterns.