Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Summer 8-3-2016
Abstract
As pharmaceutical companies are sponsors and producers of much of the research evidence for new medicines, it is important that they make that evidence available to the NHS as soon as possible and that users in the NHS are able easily to access it, evaluate it and use it in clinical decision-making. When healthcare professionals refer to information provision by the pharmaceutical industry, however, they often focus on advertising and promotional information and question its value or they claim that the industry supplies biased information. In order to gain in-depth insights into information providers’ views of their roles and activities, qualitative interviews were carried out with employees of a selection of pharmaceutical companies in the UK. Interviews were carried out by telephone to minimize inconvenience to the participants and in the hope of encouraging participation. The findings indicate that, companies’ information behaviour is influenced not just by their internal context and goals but also by the external context in which they operate, including legal requirements. The ISCM also refers to personal context, training, experience and job role as possible influences on information providers’ behaviour. In addition, it takes a novel approach in using existing theory not only from library and information science but also from communication studies. As a result, the ISCM is more comprehensive in scope than most other models, covering as it does the information user, information seeking and use, the information provider and communication.