Background: 

In the age of aggressive marketing of pharmaceutical products, drug promotional literature plays a crucial role. W.H.O defines drug promotion as “all information and persuasive activities of manufacturers and distributors, the effect of which to induce prescription, supply and purchase and/use of medical drugs” .Pharmaceutical companies use drug promotional literature as major marketing tool to promote their new drugs claimed to provide vital drug information. 

Materials and methods: 

A cross sectional observational questionnaire-based study was conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital after taking ethical clearance from the Institutional Review Board. The study participants included all the prescribing physicians.

Results: 

45% of the participants felt that the promotional literature always influenced their prescribing.

70 % preferred written media like pamphlets, brochures and leaflets as promotional literature when

compared to electronic media. Most of the prescribing physicians found it difficult to find all the missing

information from the drug promotional literature.

Conclusion: 

Prescribing physicians must be provided with training for critically analyzing such materials.

Pharmaceutical companies should ensure that the published content is in accordance with the guidelines. Physicians must be aware of the risk of using non independent information sources.