Objective
To determine the impact of physicians' financial relationships with the pharmaceutical
industry on prescribing marketed alpha-blockers and overactive bladder (OAB) medications.
We also aim to examine if the number or total value of transactions is influential.
Materials and Methods
We linked the Open Payments Program database of industry payments to prescribers with
Medicare Part D prescription data. We used binomial logistic regression to identify
the association between receipt of industry payment and prescribing of marketed alpha-blockers
(silodosin) and OAB medications (fesoterodine, solifenacin, and mirabegron). We also
evaluated the impact of increasing total value and number of payments on prescribing
of marketed drugs.
Results
The receipt of industry payment was associated with increased odds of prescribing
the marketed drug for all included drugs: silodosin (odds ratio [OR] 34.1), fesoterodine
(OR 5.9), solifenacin (OR 2.7), and mirabegron (OR 6.8) (all P <.001). We also found that increasing value of total payment and increasing frequency
of payments were both independently associated with increased odds of prescribing
with a dose-response effect.
Conclusion
There is a consistent association between receipt of industry payment and prescribing
marketed alpha-blockers and OAB medications. Both the total value and number of transactions
were associated with prescribing.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 19, 2018
Accepted:
April 5,
2018
Received:
January 16,
2018
Footnotes
Financial Disclosure: James M. Dupree receives salary support from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for his role as the co-director of the Michigan Value Collaborative and his involvement in the Michigan Urological Surgery Improvement Collaborative. The remaining authors declare that they have no relevant financial interests.
Funding Support: This work was supported by P30CA072720 (EAS).
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
