An Empirical Note on Comparative Perceptions of Indian Patients and Physicians in Direct-to-Consumer Promotion of Pharmaceutical Products

Direct promotion of pharmaceutical products to patients is not legal in India. Internet healthcare websites, however, have rendered this law moot. Patients today increasingly flock to websites to find health-related information. With the help of a survey involving 400 patients and 200 physicians, this chapter attempts to identify the differences in the perception of physicians and patients. The results indicate that major differences exist in the beliefs held by physicians and patients vis-à-vis merits and demerits of DTC-promotion through health-related websites. As patients and physicians operate as a team while health-solutions are made available to the patients, such major differences in their beliefs regarding the merits and demerits of DTC-promotion may result in emergence of fault lines in their relationship. An exploratory factor analysis has been conducted to confirm if the underlying variables measure the latent factors or not. Regression model has been developed to measure the impact of information perception on patient-physician relationship.