A Unique Method for Facilitating the Comparison of Differences in Multi-National Pharmaceutical Studies

Experience has shown that physicians in different countries vary in how they use rating scales. As a result, cross-national comparisons can be problematic.

While it is desirable to adjust ratings to make them comparable, attempts to do so have been largely unsuccessful or are impractical for the daily practice of pharmaceutical market research. The traditional method of normalization often does not work well because studies do not contain the large number and range of ratings needed to accurately and reliably establish the response distribution of each respondent. As a result, normalization is often misused and the results are misleading.

Our theory at Ipsos Marketing Health was that a scale that is anchored to the respondents' rating of the best product or company can be used to adjust sale use and reduce cultural variation in scale use. We reasoned it would be preferable because it anchored to a concept that means the same thing in all cultures: the best - the apex.