Convenient Online No.1 Among Physicians

The Internet has become the number one medium for data collection for quantitative physician studies, used for 43% of studies according to research by specialist US provider Medefield. Online research made strong gains versus face-to-face and telephone research for the third year running.

The newly released 2006 Medefield Pharmaceutical Market Research Trends Study is the third in the annual series, and reports a dramatic change with 43% of all quantitative medical MR globally, and 75% in the US conducted online. Medefield says rapid acceptance of the method, largely based on the high saturation of physicians with Internet access, is particularly evident this year in the European Union: here the level of online pharmaceutical research has 'jumped 27% in the last year alone.'

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The study was based on online interviews (arguably a factor introducing slight bias?) with 122 market research and business intelligence professionals. These include representatives from more than 20 global pharmaceutical and biotech companies – among them Novartis, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, GSK, Pfizer, Merck, BMS, Roche, Amgen and Schering.

According to Elys Roberts, President of Medefield America, the convenience of the method for physicians themselves driving its acceptance not just as a quick, cheap alternative but as one offering higher quality: 'We are seeing a rapid increase in the number of market research professionals who are choosing to conduct large global studies online... The fact that the Internet is convenient can easily translate into higher response rates and more robust data. Increased access to the Internet—on the part of the physicians—means that it is possible for market researchers to capture feedback from a broader cross-section of physicians, located in different regions and reflecting different professional backgrounds and practices. It is interesting to see that researchers are choosing the online approach not just if they want fast results, but because they perceive that it will provide a better sample distribution and higher quality quantitative data.'

Medefield is a provider of e-Fieldwork services, with recruiting capabilities in the US, Canada, Europe, Central and South America and Asia, online at www.medefield.com . Its proprietary respondent community includes more than 400,000 physicians around the world.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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