Evaluating a drug bulletin involves finding out whether it is meeting certain objectives. These objectives could relate to quality, level of readership, usefulness of articles, or influence on the reader’s knowledge, attitude or actual prescribing behaviour.

There is no single correct way to evaluate a drug bulletin. Research involving quantitative data collection (direct measurements of what is happening) is not necessarily better than research involving qualitative data (measurements of attitudes, beliefs etc. showing why something is happening). What is important is that research, whatever type is chosen, is carried out rigorously so that there can be confidence in the validity of the results.

The choice of evaluation depends primarily on the intended objective. You may want to start with a self-evaluation of the quality of the bulletin, and then move on to evaluate the usefulness of the information to the reader. When your bulletin is well established, has a committed readership and has been running smoothly for a period of time, you may want to undertake an impact evaluation.