Constructing a problem and marketing solutions: A critical content analysis of the nature and function of industry‐authored oral health educational materials

Abstract

Aims and objectives: To document the nature of industry-authored educational materials focused on oral health; and analyse how they construct the relationships between nurses and industry. Background: Nurses frequently rely on pharmaceutical and medical device companies for continuing education. However, industry-sponsored education is a key aspect of multi-faceted promotional campaigns and may introduce bias into clinical decision-making. Design: Critical qualitative content analysis reported according to the COREQ checklist. Methods: We purposively sampled educational documents from the websites of 4 major manufacturers of oral health products for acute care. Two researchers analysed each document using an open-ended coding form. We conducted an interpretive analysis using inductive coding methods. Results: We included 63 documents that emphasised the importance of education in the form of training, expert guidance, evidence syntheses and protocols to support oral care practices. Industry promoted its relationship with nursing as an oral health authority through three dominant messages: (1) Pneumonia is a source of morbidity, mortality and treatment costs, which informed nurses about a critical problem; (2) Comprehensive oral care reduces pneumonia risk, which instructed nurses about product-oriented solutions; and (3) Frequent oral care is important, which emphasised compliance to standardised protocols. These messages formed an accountability logic that prompted clinicians to address a problem for which the company's products served as a solution. In doing so, industry validated dominant administrative concerns including compliance, while promoting product uptake. Conclusions: Industry-authored educational materials may promote industry interests, rather than nursing or patient agendas. Dependence on industry's information and product solutions may have unintended, negative consequences for nursing practice.

Commercializing Personal Health Information: A Critical Qualitative Content Analysis of Documents Describing Proprietary Primary Care Databases in Canada

“…Critical qualitative content analysis is a methodology that uses documents as the primary data source. 40 , 53 - 55 Documents are an underused source of information, often relegated to supporting roles in qualitative studies, but contain rich content and contextual information allowing them to function as a primary data source. Qualitative content analyses, as a methodology, addresses content, context, credibility and audience.…”

“…The analysis relies on theoretical presuppositions and purposive sampling with deeper, repetitive readings of the texts to identify patterns, meanings and themes in the documents. 40 , 53 - 55 Critical approaches understand texts as value-laden and situated within a specific social context and power structures. 40 , 54 , 56 Additionally, critical approaches are action-oriented, arguing that knowledge generation should address social order, in particular, “oppressive social structures.” 57 Critical content analyses have been used to analyze police training materials, 58 media reporting on the opioid crisis, 59 and corporate promotional materials.…”

“… 40 , 54 , 56 Additionally, critical approaches are action-oriented, arguing that knowledge generation should address social order, in particular, “oppressive social structures.” 57 Critical content analyses have been used to analyze police training materials, 58 media reporting on the opioid crisis, 59 and corporate promotional materials. 55 , 60 The study authors have expertise in qualitative methods, critical content analysis, discourse analysis, health policy, digital technologies, and the interactions between commercial entities and the healthcare system. We reported our methods using the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research 61 ( Supplementary file 1 ).…”

Public food procurement for Italian schools: results from analytical and content analyses

“…CA can be defined as a systematic technique for compressing many words of text into fewer content categories based on explicit rules of coding (Berelson, 1952). In this study, CA was performed using NVivo® (QSR International, Melbourne, AU), a qualitative data analysis software that provides structure to content (Grundy et al , 2020). In this type of study, the CA of food tenders is strongly supported by the view that some data are obtained confidentially, and there is a high probability of these tenders expressing local entities' perceptions of how the issues tenders' proposals might influences policy preferences (Asekomeh et al , 2006).…”

Prevalence and nature of manufacturer-sponsored patient support programs for prescription drugs in Canada: a cross-sectional study

“…Building on effective methods for sampling industry Internet documents, 38,39 2 authors (A.Q. and D.H.) independently per formed structured searches on Google ("[company name] AND patient support program AND Canada" and "[drug brand name] AND patient support program AND Canada") to identify industry sponsored patient support programs in Canada, resolving dis crepancies through discussion, with a third author (Q.G.)…”