Towards the Development of a Substance Abuse Index (SEI) through Informatics

Substance abuse or drug dependence is a prevalent phenomenon, and is on the rise in United States. Important contributing factors for the prevalence are the addictive nature of certain medicinal/prescriptive drugs, individual dispositions (biological, physiological, and psychological), and other external influences (e.g., pharmaceutical advertising campaigns). However, currently there is no comprehensive computational or machine learning framework that allows systematic studies of substance abuse and its factors with majority of the works using subjective surveys questionnaires and focusing on classification techniques. Lacking standardized methods and/or measures to prescribe medication and to study substance abuse makes it difficult to advance through collective research efforts. Thus, in this paper, we propose to test the feasibility of developing a, objective substance effect index, SEI, that can measure the tendency of an individual towards substance abuse. To that end, we combine the benefits of Electronics Medical Records (EMR) with machine learning technology by defining SEI as a function of EMR data and using logistics regression to obtain a closed form expression for SEI. We conduct various evaluations to validate the proposed model, and the results show that further work towards the development of SEI will not only provide researchers with standard computational measure for substance abuse, but may also allow them to study certain attribute interactions to gain further insights into substance abuse tendencies.

Overcoming institutionalised barriers to digital health systems: An autoethnographic study of the judicialization of a digital health tool.

Background The deployment of digital health systems may be impeded by barriers that or are linked to underlying enduring institutions. Attempting to challenge the barriers without addressing the underpinning institution may be ineffective. This study reflects on ways actors may surmount institutionalised barriers to the uptake of digital tools in health systems. Methods Institutional theory concepts were applied to an autoethnographic case study of efforts to introduce a digital tool to provide citizens with medicines information. Results The tool’s uptake was impeded because of state regulators’ institutionalised interpretation of pharmaceutical advertising laws, which rendered the tool illegal. The regulators’ institutionalised interpretation of pharmaceutical advertising laws was successfully challenged through various actions by the author- a pharmacist, and by allies beyond the health sector. These actions included: framing the tool as legal and constitutional, litigation, and redefining these concepts: ‘advertising’, ‘health institution’, and the role of regulatory bodies vis a vis innovation. Conclusion After identifying a barrier as being institutionalised or linked to an institution, actors might challenge such barriers by engaging in institutional work; i.e. deliberate efforts to challenge the relevant institution (e.g. a law, norm or shared belief). Institutional work may require the actions of multiple actors within and beyond the health sector, including judicial actors. Such cross-sectoral alliances are efficacious because they provide institutional workers with a broader range of strategies, framings, concepts and forums with which to challenge institutionalised barriers. However, actors beyond the health system (e.g. the judiciary) must be inquisitive about the potential implications of the digital health interventions they champion.

MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY IN ADVERTISING TEXT

Background. The article is dedicated to advertising text, which widely uses medical terminology. Advertising text, in which medical vocabulary is widely used, has its own specific character. The content of pharmaceutical advertising texts is enriched with a wide range of medical terminology and helps the consumer to know what is for what or what is for what. Undoubtedly, the text of advertising for pharmaceutical products can serve as a widespread dissemination of the advertised drug among the population. Taking into account the demand, interests, sometimes the individual desire of consumers, the text of the advertisement is drawn up, referring to the linguistic, linguocultural, linguo-sociological capabilities of each language. The lexicological stock of the language is actively used in the design of the advertising text, which contains medical vocabulary.

Direct to Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising – Helpful or Harmful?

While direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) has been legalized in the United States and New Zealand, the prescribed drug marketing has long reached other places in the world including the Asian regions. Behind the successful profit-making pharmaceutical companies, concerns about public health impacts to the patient and physician counterpart have grown. Evidences illustrated that DTCA increases the volume of prescribing amount through patient demand and that the traditional manner of drug prescribing action has changed. However, the quality of health care trade in the relationship between physician and patient often overlooked and compromised. The systematic review analysed eight studies from five identified search engines using PRISMA guidelines. This review findings demonstrate DTCA implication in term of the health literacy, economic impact and relationship between physician and patient. Physician expressed substantial degree of dissatisfying behaviour when challenged with unnecessary need to prescribe drugs demand by patient. The prominent involvement of policymakers in regulating the guideline and controlling delivery of information in any advertisement related to drugs is direly important.

Assessment of Perception, Knowledge and Practice of Healthcare Professionals Regarding Pharmaceutical Advertisement (PA) in Pakistan

Pharmaceutical advertising (PA) effects both healthcare professionals and consumers. Ethical and legal challenges of PA are often odious and unmet to the standards. This study was designed to assess perceptions, knowledge, and practices of healthcare professionals towards pharmaceutical advertisement in Pakistan. A survey-based descriptive cross-section study, of 764 sample records and analyzed by SPSS, version 21. A Chi-square test was performed (p ≤ 0.05) to find out differences among variables. We found 34.8% (n=266) physicians, 8.4% (n=64) dentists, 13.6% (n=104) hospital pharmacists, 15.7% (n=120) community pharmacists, 8.4% (n=64) regulatory pharmacists, 8.3% (n=63) marketing pharmacists and 10.9% (n=83) physicians and pharmacists from distributions and other relevant fields participated in this study. The result showed that 81.4 % (n=622) believed that medical advertisements should seek government approval, 71.3% (n=545) assumed that only registered drugs could be advertised. 34.0% (n=260) answered only prescription drug could be advertised. 7.2% (n=284) showed a negative response towards advertised drugs. 33.0% (n=252) answered that advertising encourages the patients to decide on their choice of a drug without the help of a healthcare professional, while 31.4%(n=240) of the respondents were agreed that advertising provided reliable information regarding a medicine. 36.4% (n=278) of respondents were agree that advertisements increased drugs cost. 32.7% (n=250 and 37.4% (n=286) answered that patients buy an advertised drug without referring a doctor. This study concluded that the awareness regarding PA was low among the healthcare professionals in Pakistan. Healthcare personals were in the favor of advertisement, regardless of little knowledge about the current advertisement rules in the country. Comparatively, Pharmacists have better knowledge of PA than physicians do.

Regulatory scenario of pharmaceutical advertisement in India, USA and Australia: A comparative study

Advertisements are essential for sustaining growth and economic development in a world for all kinds of industries. Drug development is a protracted process and a risky business. For new product entry in the market, advertising has a noteworthy positive impact. But some pharmaceutical products advertising specially branded products is controversial and doubtful to advertisement regulations. Advertising is an important asset for any industry to reach new consumers with faith in existing consumers forms over a decade. As per the regulatory perspective in pharmaceutical advertising which is much more than advertising in the serious sense of words itself. The different county has a different legislative framework for protects consumer and company rights. Administrative bodies and lawmakers limit the possibilities of advertising for better achievements. This study emphasizes the regulatory outline of pharmaceutical advertisements in India, USA and Australia.