Evaluation of Pharmaceutical Marketing Tools and Their Influence on Prescribing Behavior of Physicians in Brazil: A Mixed-Method Study

This study aimed to evaluate the importance of promotional tools in pharmaceutical marketing and their consequent impact on medical prescriptions, focusing on the perspectives of psychiatrists, cardiologists, and dermatologists. A sequential exploratory mixed-method approach was used, beginning with a qualitative phase to map the tools and followed by a quantitative phase to determine their influence on medical decision-making. For the quantitative analyses, the statistical software SPSS was used. In the qualitative phase, nine doctors were interviewed using a semi-structured script. From this investigation, five tools stood out- frequency of visits, technical knowledge of the medical representative, patient support, provision of free samples, and sponsorship of medical education events. Subsequently, a survey was conducted with 645 physicians, of whom 416 were considered for analysis after qualification, with 296 of these belonging to the specialties focused on in the study. Using the Conjoint Analysis (CA) technique, the quantitative phase of the research established the following hierarchy of influence on medical prescription- technical knowledge of the representative, patient support, sponsorship of medical education events, free samples, and frequency of visits. Finally, through the application of the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) technique, it was determined that the perception of these tools does not vary significantly among the specialties.