THE IMPACT OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION ON PHYSICIAN’S PRESCRIPTION BEHAVIOR; 16 SELECTED HOSPITALS IN ADDIS ABABA AS CASE

Abstract

All over the globe pharmaceutical enterprises are using different promotional techniques in order to get Physicians’ attention for their products. Even though, currently, to have an influence on physicians’ prescription decision pharmaceutical companies are using different promotional techniques, there is no evidence that which marketing strategy is/ are most effective in Ethiopian medical institutions’ context. The purpose of this study is, thus, to assess perception of physicians on different promotional activities and determine their effects on physician prescribing behavior. Accordingly, the thesis proposed important research hypotheses on the effect of pharmaceutical marketing on physician prescribing behavior. Methodology used was using questionnaire tool to collect data and analyze, where a set of self-administered structured questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 133 practicing physicians working at selected 10 private and 6 public hospitals in Addis Ababa. The respondents participated in this study were selected by using convenient non-probabilistic sampling technique. The findings revealed that the different promotional techniques that pharmaceutical companies are using have significant effect on the physicians’ prescription decision except advertising. It was found that prescription behavior of a physician greatly influenced by pharmaceutical marketing. Among all promotional strategies public relation ( = 0.698 at p<0.05) followed by personal selling ( = 0.518 at p<0.05) and sales promotion ( = 0.408 at p<0.05) were found most effective strategy that influence a physician’s prescription remarkably while advertisement has showed insignificant effect as commercials of the pharmaceutical products in a scientific journals attracts the physician concentration least. The study also revealed that physicians have a positive perception about the information they have got from continuous medical education, free sample demonstration, interpersonal relationship with sales representatives and printing object like brochures. To be on the competitive edge, pharmaceutical companies need to understand the healthcare environment and both financial and non-financial need of physicians.