Doctors taking bribes from pharmaceutical companies is common and not substantially reduced by an educational intervention: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial in Pakistan.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Incentive-linked prescribing, which is when healthcare providers accept incentives from pharmaceutical companies for prescribing promoted medicines, is a form of bribery that harms patients and health systems globally. We developed a novel method using data collectors posing as pharmaceutical company sales representatives to evaluate private doctors' engagement in incentive-linked prescribing and the impact of a multifaceted educational intervention on reducing this practice in Karachi, Pakistan.

Methods

We made a sampling frame of all doctors running for-profit, primary-care clinics and randomly allocated participants to control and intervention groups (1:1). The intervention group received a multifaceted seminar on ethical prescribing and reinforcement message

SUBMITTER: Khan M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11789533 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature