Family Medicine Department, Saint Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon.
Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross, Jal Eddib, Lebanon.
BMC Prim Care. 2022 Dec 6;23(1):314. doi: 10.1186/s12875-022-01930-5.
Drug promoting brochures can influence physicians prescription patterns. The validity of the info presented in these brochures is of major importance. World Health Organization (WHO) issued criteria to guarantee validity, equity and ethical presentation of data in medical brochures. This study aims to evaluate the quality and the validity of information presented in the pharmaceutical brochures distributed among family physicians in Lebanon.
Pharmaceutical brochures were randomly collected at the family medicine center in Hôtel Dieu de France hospital in Beirut - Lebanon. These brochures were evaluated in reference to the WHO ethical criteria for medicinal drug promotion and on guidelines for quality assurance of the graphs, references, texts and illustrations.
Among the 60 brochures collected, only 4 fulfilled all the WHO ethical criteria, and 24 presented less than half the required criteria. Information concerning the drug safety are the least mentioned. Only 11.8% of the presented graphs are based on studies of high methodological level. Half of the brochures presented necessary information to identify studies references which are not always retrievable. Texts present mainly brand names instead of generic names and emphasize on information reflecting the drug efficacy.
The pharmaceutical brochures in this study presented incomplete or invalid information. Prescribing physicians should be aware of the claims found in the brochures distributed by pharmaceutical companies and should be familiar with the principles of the evidence-based medicine to be able to critically appraise the validity of the reference studies and avoid the pitfalls in graphs reading.
药品宣传册可能会影响医生的处方模式。这些宣传册中所呈现信息的有效性非常重要。世界卫生组织（WHO）发布了一系列标准，以确保药品宣传册中数据的有效性、公平性和伦理呈现。本研究旨在评估黎巴嫩家庭医生中分发的药品宣传册中所呈现信息的质量和有效性。
在黎巴嫩贝鲁特的法国医院的家庭医学中心随机收集药品宣传册。这些宣传册参照世界卫生组织的药品推广伦理标准以及图形、参考文献、文本和插图质量保证指南进行评估。
在收集的 60 份宣传册中，仅有 4 份完全符合世界卫生组织的所有伦理标准，而 24 份仅符合一半的要求标准。有关药物安全性的信息提及最少。仅 11.8%的呈现图形基于高水平的方法学研究。一半的宣传册提供了识别研究参考文献的必要信息，但这些参考文献并不总是可检索的。文本主要呈现品牌名称而非通用名称，并强调反映药物疗效的信息。
本研究中的药品宣传册呈现的信息不完整或无效。处方医生应该意识到药品公司分发的宣传册中的声明，并熟悉循证医学的原则，以便能够批判性地评估参考研究的有效性，并避免在阅读图形时出现陷阱。
