UK doctors not going digital for product information
pharmafile | August 22, 2012 | News story | Medical Communications |Â Â GPs, UK, digital, doctorsnetÂ
A new survey has revealed that the majority of doctors in the UK are not looking online for information about pharma products.
A Doctors.net survey of 1,000 clinicians in the UK, commissioned by a pharma trade magazine, found that just 23% said they preferred to obtain their own product information via independent online resources.
These findings follow earlier studies conducted by Doctors.net, which show that only 3% of doctors think that online pharma resources are credible, and 42% never visit pharma websites.
The survey also shows that doctors were increasingly becoming too busy to see pharma reps, with just over half of GPs saying they did not see any pharma sales reps in a typical week, and 26% of them saw only one pharma sales rep in that period.
Lack of time was the most common reason cited by GPs, with 38% of those surveyed saying they were simply too busy.
Doctors.net also found that 15% of respondents revealed that seeing pharma reps was ‘against practice policy’, with a number of GPs concerned that reps had a conflict of interest when giving information about their company’s products.
Other findings from the research showed that 68% of GPs said they were more likely to see a pharma sales rep if they had a sound knowledge of the disease their product was designed to treat.
But only 40% of GPs thought that pharma sales reps were adequately trained and able to add value to treatment decisions – a worrying statistic for pharma.
This survey shows that pharma does not have a strong influence over UK doctors as they are rarely using pharma sites or seeing reps from companies – and when they are, many GPs don’t trust what they are being told.
This once again indicates that pharma must bridge its credibility gap – and perhaps focus less on digital strategies, and more on traditional print media if it wants to fully engage with doctors in the UK.
Ben Adams is the reporter for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and author of the DigiBlog site. He can be contacted via: email or Twitter.
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