IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0034974.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Patient Organizations’ Funding from Pharmaceutical Companies: Is Disclosure Clear, Complete and Accessible to the Public? An Italian Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Cinzia Colombo
  • Paola Mosconi
  • Walter Villani
  • Silvio Garattini

Abstract

Background: Many patients’ and consumers’ organizations accept drug industry funding to support their activities. As drug companies and patient groups move closer, disclosure become essential for transparency, and the internet could be a useful means of making sponsorship information accessible to the public. This survey aims to assess the transparency of a large group of Italian patient and consumer groups and a group of pharmaceutical companies, focusing on their websites. Methodology/Principal Findings: Patient and consumer groups were selected from those stated to be sponsored by a group of pharmaceutical companies on their websites. The websites were examined using two forms with principal (name of drug companies providing funds, amount of funding) and secondary indicators of transparency (section where sponsors are disclosed, update of sponsorship). Principal indicators were applied independently by two reviewers to the patient and consumer groups’ websites. Discordances were solved by discussion. One hundred fifty-seven Italian patient and consumer groups and 17 drug companies were considered. Thirteen drug companies (76%) named at least one group funded, on their Italian websites. Of these, four (31%) indicated the activities sponsored and two (15%) the amount of funding. Of the 157 patient and consumer groups, 46 (29%) named at least one pharmaceutical company as providing funds. Three (6%) reported the amount of funding, 25 (54%) the activities funded, none the proportion of income derived from drug companies. Among the groups naming pharmaceutical company sponsors, 15 (33%) declared them in a dedicated section, five (11%) on the home page, the others in the financial report or other sections. Conclusions/Significance: Disclosure of funds is scarce on Italian patient and consumer groups’ websites. The levels of transparency need to be improved. Disclosure of patient and consumer groups provided with funds is frequent on Italian pharmaceutical companies’ websites, but information are often not complete.

Suggested Citation

  • Cinzia Colombo & Paola Mosconi & Walter Villani & Silvio Garattini, 2012. "Patient Organizations’ Funding from Pharmaceutical Companies: Is Disclosure Clear, Complete and Accessible to the Public? An Italian Survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-8, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0034974
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034974
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034974&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0034974?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jane Robertson & Ray Moynihan & Emily Walkom & Lisa Bero & David Henry, 2009. "Mandatory Disclosure of Pharmaceutical Industry-Funded Events for Health Professionals," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(11), pages 1-5, November.
    2. Hemminki, Elina & Toiviainen, Hanna K. & Vuorenkoski, Lauri, 2010. "Co-operation between patient organisations and the drug industry in Finland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1171-1175, April.
    3. Rothman, S.M. & Raveis, V.H. & Friedman, A. & Rothman, D.J., 2011. "Health advocacy organizations and the pharmaceutical industry: an analysis of disclosure practices," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 101(4), pages 602-609.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lucas, Henry, 2015. "New technology and illness self-management: Potential relevance for resource-poor populations in Asia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 145-153.
    2. Shai Mulinari & Andreas Vilhelmsson & Emily Rickard & Piotr Ozieranski, 2020. "Five years of pharmaceutical industry funding of patient organisations in Sweden: Cross-sectional study of companies, patient organisations and drugs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-19, June.
    3. Rickard, Emily & Ozieranski, Piotr & Mulinari, Shai, 2019. "Evaluating the transparency of pharmaceutical company disclosure of payments to patient organisations in the UK," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(12), pages 1244-1250.
    4. Mulinari, Shai & Pashley, Dylan & Ozieranski, Piotr, 2022. "Advancing international comparison of pharmaceutical industry funding of patient advocacy: Focus on Denmark," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(12), pages 1256-1262.
    5. Livio Garattini & Katelijne Vooren, 2013. "Could co-payments on drugs help to make EU health care systems less open to political influence?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(5), pages 709-713, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shai Mulinari & Andreas Vilhelmsson & Emily Rickard & Piotr Ozieranski, 2020. "Five years of pharmaceutical industry funding of patient organisations in Sweden: Cross-sectional study of companies, patient organisations and drugs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-19, June.
    2. Baggott, Rob & Jones, Kathryn, 2014. "The voluntary sector and health policy: The role of national level health consumer and patients' organisations in the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 202-209.
    3. Britten, Nicky & Denford, Sarah & Harris-Golesworthy, Faith & Jibson, Steph & Pyart, Nigel & Stein, Ken, 2015. "Patient involvement in drug licensing: A case study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 289-296.
    4. Collette Sosnowy, 2014. "Practicing Patienthood Online: Social Media, Chronic Illness, and Lay Expertise," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-14, June.
    5. Mulinari, Shai & Pashley, Dylan & Ozieranski, Piotr, 2022. "Advancing international comparison of pharmaceutical industry funding of patient advocacy: Focus on Denmark," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(12), pages 1256-1262.
    6. Rickard, Emily & Ozieranski, Piotr & Mulinari, Shai, 2019. "Evaluating the transparency of pharmaceutical company disclosure of payments to patient organisations in the UK," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(12), pages 1244-1250.
    7. Quinn Grundy & Sasha Mazzarello & Sarah Brennenstuhl & Emily A Karanges, 2021. "A comparison of educational events for physicians and nurses in Australia sponsored by opioid manufacturers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-18, March.
    8. Jesse R. Catlin & Cornelia (Connie) Pechmann, 2016. "An Investigation of Consumer and Doctor Regulatory Beliefs and Regulatory Knowledge about Pharmaceutical Drug Promotions," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(3), pages 392-410.
    9. Anju Murayama & Akihiko Ozaki & Hiroaki Saito & Toyoaki Sawano & Yuki Shimada & Kana Yamamoto & Yosuke Suzuki & Tetsuya Tanimoto, 2020. "Pharmaceutical company payments to dermatology Clinical Practice Guideline authors in Japan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-16, October.
    10. Susanna Priolo & Andras Fehervary & Phil Riggins & Kathy Redmond, 2012. "Assessing Stakeholder Opinion on Relations between Cancer Patient Groups and Pharmaceutical Companies in Europe," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 5(2), pages 127-139, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0034974. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.