Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3363

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

Morris LA, Brinberg D, Klimberg R, Rivera C, Millstein LG.
The attitudes of consumers toward direct advertising of prescription drugs.
Public Health Rep 1986 Jan-Feb; 101:(1):82-9

Abstract:

Attitudes about prescription drug advertising directed to consumers were assessed in 1,509 persons who had viewed prototypical advertisements for fictitious prescription drug products. Although many subjects were generally favorable toward the concept of drug advertising directed to consumers, strong reservations were also expressed, especially about television advertising. Prescription drug advertising did not appear to undermine the physician’s authority, since respondents viewed the physician as the primary drug decision-maker. However, the physician was not perceived as the sole source of prescription drug information. Television advertising appeared to promote greater information-seeking about particular drugs; however, magazine ads were more fully accepted by subjects. Furthermore, magazine ads led to enhanced views of the patient’s authority in drug decision-making. The greater information conveyed in magazine ads may have given subjects more confidence in their own ability to evaluate the drug and the ad. Ads that integrated risk information into the body of the advertisement were more positively viewed than ads that gave special emphasis to the risk information. The results suggest that consumer attitudes about prescription drug advertising are not firmly held and are capable of being influenced by the types of ads people view. Regulation of such ads may need to be flexed to adapt to the way different media are used and processed by consumers.

Keywords:
*analytic survey/United States/direct-to-consumer advertising/print advertisements/broadcast advertisements/doctor-patient relationship/value of promotion/safety & risk information/consumer behaviour & knowledge/ATTITUDES REGARDING PROMOTION: CONSUMERS/PATIENTS/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DRUG SAFETY/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: CONSUMERS AND PATIENTS/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP/PROMOTION AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION: CONSUMERS AND PATIENTS/PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER ADVERTISING Adult Advertising/methods* Age Factors Arthritis/drug therapy Attitude* Consumer Participation Educational Status Evaluation Studies Female Humans Hypertension/drug therapy Male Middle Aged Periodicals Pharmaceutical Preparations* Questionnaires Sex Factors Television United States