Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015:2015:469147.
doi: 10.1155/2015/469147. Epub 2015 Jan 28.

A Critical Analysis of Claims and Their Authenticity in Indian Drug Promotional Advertisements

Gurpreet Kaur Randhawa  1 , Navyug Raj Singh  1 , Jaswant Rai  1 , Gobindnoor Kaur  1 , Resham Kashyap  1
Affiliations

A Critical Analysis of Claims and Their Authenticity in Indian Drug Promotional Advertisements

Gurpreet Kaur Randhawa et al. Adv Med. 2015.

Abstract

Introduction. Drug promotional advertisements (DPAs) form a major marketing technique of pharmaceutical companies for promoting their products and disseminating ambiguous drug information which can affect prescribing pattern of physicians. Drug information includes product characteristics, various marketing claims with references in support to increase its credibility and authenticity. Material and Methods. An observational study was carried out on fifty printed drug advertisement brochures which were collected from different OPDs of Guru Nanak Dev Hospital attached to Government Medical College, Amritsar, India. These advertisements were analyzed and claims were categorized into true, false, exaggerated, vague, and controversial on criteria as reported by Rohraa et al. (2006). References of DPAs in support of the claims were critically analyzed for their retrievability from web and validity pertaining to claims. Results. Out of 209 claims from 50 advertisements, only 46% were found to be true, 21% false, 16% vague, 7% exaggerated, and 10% controversial in nature. Out of 160 references given in support of claims, 49 (30%) of references were irretrievable. Out of 111 (70%) retrievable references, 92 (83%) references were found valid. Conclusion. Drug information provided in the DPAs was biased, incomplete, unauthentic, and unreliable with references exhibiting questionable credibility.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Categorization of claims in drug promotional advertisements.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Graph depicting variation in number of claims per advertisement.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Classification of references as per retrievability pattern.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Thawani V. Drug promotion: can self-regulation work? Indian Journal of Pharmacology. 2002;34(4):227–228.
    1. Sahne B. J., Yegenoglu S., Uner M., Wertheimer A. I. Adherence of drug advertisements to the international marketing codes. Hacettepe University Journal of the Faculty of Pharmacy. 2012;32(1):53–66.
    1. Lal A. Pharmaceutical drug promotion: how it is being practiced in India? The Journal of the Association of Physicians of India. 2001;49:266–273. - PubMed
    1. Cooper R. J., Schriger D. L., Wallace R. C., Mikulich V. J., Wilkes M. S. The quantity and quality of scientific graphs in pharmaceutical advertisements. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2003;18(4):294–297. doi: 10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.20703.x. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO. Trade, foreign policy, diplomacy and health. http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story073/en/#main.

LinkOut - more resources