Vilasinee Yuwaree. The survey of quantity and quality of pharmaceutical advertisements in Thai commercial medical journals . Master's Degree(Pharmacy Administration). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2007.
The survey of quantity and quality of pharmaceutical advertisements in Thai commercial medical journals
Abstract:
This study is descriptive research using retrospective data from 6 Thai
commercial medical journals published during the year 2005. The objective of this
study was to investigate the quantity and quality of pharmaceutical advertisements in
the selected medical journals. All descriptive characteristics of advertisements were
examined and the quality of claim advertisements was evaluated. The percentage of
evidence-based claim advertisements was, then, examined based on the reliability and
quality of references including the consistency of the claim messages and their
references. The consistency of claim message and references was evaluated by two
reviewers independently. A third reviewer reviewed them again when the two
reviewers disagreed. In addition, factors associated with evidence-based advertisement
were explored.
The total number of claim and reminder pharmaceutical advertisements in the
2005 issue of the six selected medical journals was 452, and 303 respectively. The
total number of distinguished claim advertisements was 106. Most of them were
pharmaceutical products, which were not listed in the National List of Essential Drug
(NLED), and were original brand. Almost all of them were presented in English.
About 85% of claim messages were clinical or efficacy claim. Of the 106 claim
advertisements, about 75% cited references. Over 80% of them did not present any
statistic parameters. Almost all advertisements (90.1%) presented Thai Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) approval number. For the quality of reference, 236 references
were evaluated. About 80% of them were classified as reliable sources. Of these, 170
were articles included in Medline. Mostly, the type of reference study was a
randomized double-blind controlled trial. Of the 106 distinguished claim
advertisements, 18 (17%) were classified as evidence-based advertisements. In this
study, no relationship between evidence-based advertisement and grant supporting,
category listed in NLED, brand status and SMP (Safety Monitoring Program) status
was found. However, this study found that there was a relationship between type of
medical journal and evidence-based advertisement (p-value=0.042). In conclusion,
similar to the results found in other studies, there were a small number of evidencebased
advertisements in Thai commercial medical journals.