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Medical students' attitudes toward pharmaceutical marketing: possibilities for change
D C Vinson1, B McCandless, M C Hosokawa
1Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Missouri-Columbia.
Background:
Concerns have been expressed about physicians' acceptance of gifts from pharmaceutical companies, but few studies have examined or attempted to change medical students' attitudes about accepting such gifts.
Methods:
We used a questionnaire survey to measure attitudes about accepting such gifts. We then carried out a field experiment to compare changes in second-year medical students' attitudes, seven weeks after a one-hour lecture and discussion about the appropriateness of pharmaceutical gifts, to changes in first-year students who were not exposed to the program.
Results:
Following the intervention, second-year students became less accepting of these marketing practices; first-year students showed no significant change. The difference between the groups after the intervention was statistically significant (P < .0001).
Conclusions:
If medical students' attitudes about accepting gifts from pharmaceutical companies need to be changed, this study suggests that the process may be fostered with little investment of curricular time.