Family doctors' views of pharmaceutical sales representatives: assessment scale development

Background. The prescribing patterns depend on the physicians' attitudes and their subjective norms towards prescribing a particular drug, as well as on their personal experience with a particular drug. The physicians are affected by their interactions with pharmaceutical industry. Objective. The objectives were to develop a scale for assessment of pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs) by the family doctors (FDs) and to determine factors for their evaluation. Method. Cross-sectional anonymous postal study. We included a random sample of 250 Slovenian FDs. Settings. Slovenian FDs' surgeries. Main outcome measure. The score of various items regarding FDs' assessment of PSRs on a 7-point Likert scale. Results. We got 163 responses (65.2% response rate). The most important characteristic of PSRs, as rated by respondents on the scale from 1 to 7, was the fact that they did not mislead when presenting products' information. The second most important characteristic was the ability to provide objective information about the product. The first three most important characteristics, as rated by the respondents by themselves, were 'Shows good knowledge on the promoted subject', 'Provides objective product information' and 'Makes brief and exact visits'. Cronbach's alpha of the composite scale was 0.844. Factor analysis revealed three PSRs' factors: selling skills, communicating skills and sense of trustworthiness. Conclusion. FDs evaluate PSRs mainly by their managerial skills and trustworthiness. The scale proved to be a reliable tool for assessing PSRs by FDs.