Objective: As gatekeepers in health continuum, physicians play a pivotal role in persuading patients to consume a specific medicine, and their prescription behavior has a great effect on both healthcare costs and pharmaceutical markets. Taking the important role of physicians in healthcare system into account, in this study we have tried to empirically prioritize those factors that affect physicians' loyalty behavior in prescribing branded medicines. Methods: This research is grounded on a survey through which 437 specialist physicians were randomly invited to fill out the questionnaire of the survey. Structural Equation Modeling was performed to evaluate the research model and to test the research hypotheses. In addition to demographic section, six measures were used to evaluate the prescription behavior of physicians in terms of loyalty. Key findings: The results revealed that there are some factors influencing physicians' loyalty to branded medicines, among which professional influence is perceived to be the most important factor as compared with others. In contrast, the results rejected this hypothesis that promotional tools such as tangible rewards have a significant effect on physicians' loyalty behavior. Conclusions: The results contribute to the pharmaceutical companies endeavoring to develop fair, ethical, and effective marketing strategies to increase physicians' loyalty to their products. Furthermore, by comparing the results of similar studies, this research has shed light on this fact that influencing factors on brand loyalty may be different across countries over the world.
In this contemporary era, chitosan has gained exceptional attention as a sustainable biopolymer in the adsorption process due to its nontoxic nature, biocompatibility, accessibility, and pH-responsive active surface charge. This study developed a high-performance chitosan/poly(vinyl alcohol) adsorbent through metformin functionalization. The incorporation of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), along with the metformin-activated surface, remarkably ameliorated its physiochemical properties. The abundance of inter-and intrahydrogen and chemical bonds in the porous structure enhances the specific surface area up to 83.8 m 2 /g. Series characterization methods are utilized to investigate the adsorbents' characteristics in all aspects and the removal performance. Furthermore, the key factors for the adsorption process, including the influence of pH, adsorbent quantity, time intervals, and preliminary concentration, were studied and optimized. The optimal pH was observed in the neutral moiety, which is crucial from an industrial perspective. Due to the presence of countless nitrogen and oxygen atom-containing backbones, the CS/ PVA-Pr-Met biocomposite has demonstrated considerable adsorption capacity toward Pb(II) ions and levofloxacin with the highest adsorption capacities of 313.162 mg/g for Pb(II) and 2872.927 mg/g for levofloxacin concerning their molecular and ionic nature and various adsorption mechanisms. In accordance with the correlation coefficient and estimated parameters, the adsorption of Pb(II) and levofloxacin onto the beads mostly follows the pseudo-second-order kinetics (R 2 ≥ 0.997) and the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model (R 2 ≥ 0.995). The exceptional adsorption capacity coupled with the porous structure of the modified hydrogel beads has promising applications for efficient wastewater treatment
In the contemporary century, bio-based magnetic nanomaterials have received tremendous interest as promising candidates in adsorption procedures owing to their magnetic nature, modifiability, approachability, bioactivity, and pH-responsive dynamics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.