European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Drug promotional literatures are one of the important sources of drug
information to the physicians provided by pharmaceutical companies through medical
representatives. Information provided in the promotional literature should be factual, evidence
based, unambiguous and balanced(benefits and risks).
Objective: To evaluate the rationality of drug promotional literature using World Health
Organization(WHO) guidelines.
Material and Methods: This is a Cross-sectional, observational study, conducted at the KBN
teaching and general hospital, attached to KBN University-Faculty of Medical Sciences,
kalaburagi over a period of 6 months. Drug promotional literature was collected from the out
patient departments of KBN teaching and general hospital, kalaburagi. Drug monographs,
reminder advertisements, drug lists, ayurvedic medicines, literatures promoting medical
devices, equipments or orthopedic prosthesis and literature promoting more than two brands
were excluded.
Results
We analysed 190 drug promotional literatures (DPL). Of which majority of DPL were of
antimicrobial agents (20.52%). Other included drugs acting on cardiovascular system
(17.36%), anti-diabetic drugs (16.31%), Analgesic agents (8.94%), and least being DPL on
drugs acting on Gastrointestinal tract (2.10%). On analysis as per WHO criteria, all DPL
mentioned brand names and generic names. More than 75% of DPL presented the beneficial
points of the drug like pharmacological effect(93.15%), clinical indication(85.78%), dosage
form and strength of the drug(84.21%), dosing interval(79.47%) and less than 15% of DPL
presented data on drug safety like adverse effects(4.73%), precautions and warning(13.15%),
contraindications (6.31%), drug interactions(11.05%), special situations (2.63%) and
overdosage(1.05%). 91.57% of the DPL mentioned Name and address of manufacturer and
distributor for correspondence. Reference to scientific literature was quoted in < 50% of
DPL(49.47%) indicating the lapse in providing evidence based scientific information