Breaking news: just-published study shows that COI policies can…work!

One of the sources of frustration of toiling in the C&E field is the relatively small amount of data from the workplace on the efficacy of various program measures in actually reducing wrongdoing and otherwise promoting ethical conduct.   While unfortunate, this dearth of proof is not surprising; after all, what company would allow some or all of its employee population to serve as a control group for an “ethics experiment”?

But, as suggested by this article published yesterday in Science Daily, part of this proof gap has been filled by a recent study:  “Psychiatrists who are exposed to conflict-of-interest (COI) policies during their residency are less likely to prescribe brand-name antidepressants after graduation than those who trained in residency programs without such policies, according to a new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study is the first of its kind to show that exposure to COI policies for physicians during residency training — in this case, psychiatrists — is effective in lowering their post-graduation rates of prescriptions for brand medications, including heavily promoted and brand reformulated antidepressants.” The study will be published in the February issue of Medical Care.

Note that while evidently precedent setting in terms of medical COIs, there is other  data – from the behavioral ethics field –  showing that well-timed exposure to a rule or ethical standard can  impact behavior in desirable ways. That research – and the ways in which its teachings might form the basis of effective C&E communications strategies – is discussed here.