Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2716

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Kline S.
Prescription drug advertising: Communicating risk, benefit and cost of pharmaceuticals
Canadian Public Health Association 1992 Feb 2-4; 52-6

Abstract:

A study analyzed three months of Canadian health journals involving 111 different ads from eleven medical journals, two pharmaceutical journals and one nursing journal. In only 18% of the ads was the prescribing information adjacent and only 39% of the ads included both risk and benefit information on the front page. The conclusion of this study was that there is some concern as to whether prescription drug advertising encourages or provides sufficient information to ensure full appreciation of the indicated uses, symptoms, risks, costs, at risk populations, side-effects or research results that are necessary for rational product use. The efficacy of drug advertising as a means of providing health care professions with information about the risks and benefits of prescription drugs seems to hinge on whether doctors actually read the product monographs.

Keywords:
*analytic survey/Canada/journal advertisements/quality of information/doctors/attitude toward promotion/safety & risk information/nurses/ pharmacies and pharmacists/ATTITUDES REGARDING PROMOTION: HEALTH PROFESSIONALS/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: JOURNAL ADVERTISEMENTS