Physicians' conceptions about various continuing medical education activities and the rol of pharmaceutical industry Continuing medical education and pharmaceutical industry

Objective: Scientific conferences, newsletter circulars, etc. provided by pharmaceutical industry and relationship with members of the industry, have become sources of continuing medical education (CME) activities for physicians. The aim of this study was to determine the perceived importance of various CME activities and physician-pharmaceutical industry relations. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional face to face interview study was carried out in Sivas centre, province of Turkey, during January April 2008. All physicians working in the public sector were targeted as participants in the current study. Results: Attending professional local congresses or CME courses was reported to be the most important sources of information, followed by abroad congresses or CME courses and, reading medical journals (72.7%, 70.1% and 68.8%, respectively). Attending to abroad congresses or CME courses were significantly important among women and young physicians (p=0.001) and reading medical journals were significantly higher in young physicians (p=0.002), while the importance level of own experience were significantly higher among relatively older ones (p=0.001). About half of participant (48.7%) stated that relationship between pharmaceutical industries and physicians are important in their clinical practice. Thereputation of the pharmaceutical firms was of the foremost important (84.6%) for all physicians, especiallly relatively older physicians (p=0.04). Conclusions: Our survey provides an important knowledge of perceived importance of CME activities for physicians and described a crucial level of acceptance for the involvement of the pharmaceutical, industry in CME activities.