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Background: Promotion of drugs by pharmaceutical industries is fully regulated by drug regulators. Doctors are focus of intense marketing by representatives of pharmaceutical companies (MR). It is reported that very few physicians are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to critically assess the information delivered in drug promotional literature (DPL). Hence this study was carried out with the objective to determine knowledge, attitude and practices of doctors about the DPL Methods: This was a questionnaire-based study population included clinicians working in a government set up and others doing private practice. Questionnaire was circulated online on social media platforms via Google forms. Results: The 32.11% participants were aware of regulations and guidelines of DPL in India 80.7% participants searched for cost of medicine on DPL, 54.12% respondents perceive that the product claims made on DPL are balanced and supported by good evidence, 56.88% participants opined that their integrity is compromised by accepting gift from MR, 43.1% participants are exposed to drug advertisement through social media and 51.06% of them opined that their prescribing habits are influenced through this. Writing brand names while prescribing is significantly more in private practitioners as compared to doctors employed in government set up. Conclusions: DPL serves to update the knowledge of the busy clinicians of the latest developments in the medical field. Quality check of drug promotion on social media is the need of the hour as this is influential. Private practitioners need to be addressed regarding enforced laws for rational prescribing.
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Background: Multiple choice questions find important place in assessment in medical curriculum. Each MCQ is called item. Item analysis is quality check of MCQs after valuation of response sheets. This serves to recognize flaws in MCQs so that the given questions can be preserved in question bank, modified or deleted., , Methods: 140 medical students of second MBBS were assessed pharmacology through 20 single best response type MCQ. Post exam validation of MCQs was done by item analysis. Each item was analyzed for level of difficulty, ability of the question to discriminate between poor and good performing students and distracter effectiveness., , Results: Score ‘1’ was given for correct and ‘0’ for incorrect or no response. The mean score of the test was found to be 10.58±2.48, with a range 5-18. The whole test had an acceptable difficulty level with 43.25±17.81 mean difficulty index. The discrimination index of the whole test was found to be 0.123±0.184 mean PBI correlation coefficient, which is not satisfactory. Out of 60 distractors, 51 were found to be functional, hence distractor efficiency of the given test was 85%±19.96% which is acceptable., , Conclusions: 60% questions were found to be ideal and 25% were acceptable with revision of stem or options. One question was easy with poor discrimination which needs major modification in construct or subject to be placed in question bank while another one question was difficult but had negative biserial index which needs to be deleted from the question bank.
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Objective: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are associated with significant morbidity and mortality and have a major impact on public health. Pharmacovigilance helps in early detection of ADRs and identification of risk factors. Underreporting of ADRs can be improved by imparting knowledge regarding pharmacovigilance to healthcare professionals. This study was aimed at investigating the knowledge and attitude of resident doctors about ADR reporting and suggesting possible ways of improving ADR reporting. Materials and Methods: This study was a cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital. The respondents were resident doctors. Study instrument was a self-developed, pre-validated, semi-structured questionnaire consisting of open- and close-ended items. Results: A total of 84 questionnaires were considered for analysis, giving a response rate of 93.33%. In all, 64.28% of the respondents were aware about pharmacovigilance, 52.38% were aware of ADR reporting system in India, 83.33% opined that only serious ADR with any medicine should be reported, and 35.72% believed that ADRs should be reported only for newly marketed agents. Although 67.85% of respondents observed an ADR, only 25% reported it; 44.04% were aware about the complete procedure of ADR reporting. General attitude of the respondents about ADR reporting was as follows: ADR reporting should be compulsory (15.19%), voluntary (41.66%), remunerated (3.57%), identity of prescriber should be concealed (21.42%), and identity of reporter should be concealed (29.7%). Conclusion: Increasing awareness about pharmacovigilance will be helpful in improving the status of ADR reporting. Other measures such as making ADR reporting guidelines available in the form of booklets and displaying posters can also play a useful role.