E-DRUG: new DTCA paper
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Dear e-druggers,
An interesting paper on Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising in the
USA appears in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. It
concludes that physicians (especially GP's) as well as public respondents
have negative views on DTC.
AR Robinson et al. Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising: Physician
and Public Opinion and Potential Effects on the Physician-Patient
Relationship. Arch Intern Med 2004;164 427-432
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/164/4/427?etoc
The abstract:
Background
Previous studies have shown that direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical
advertising can influence consumer behavior and that many physicians have
negative views of these advertisements. Physician and public opinions about
these advertisements and how they may affect the physician-patient
relationship are not well established.
Methods
Mail survey of 523 Colorado physicians and 261 national physicians and
telephone survey of 500 Colorado households asking respondents to rate their
agreement with statements about DTC advertising.
Results
Most physicians tended to view DTC advertisements negatively, indicating
that such advertisements rarely provide enough information on cost (98.7%),
alternative treatment options (94.9%), or adverse effects (54.8%). Most also
believed that DTC advertisements affected interactions with patients by
lengthening clinical encounters (55.9%), leading to patient requests for
specific medications (80.7%), and changing patient expectations of
physicians' prescribing practices (67.0%). Only 29.0% of public respondents
agreed that DTC advertising is a positive trend in health care and 28.6%
indicated that advertisements make them better informed about medical
problems; fewer indicated that advertisements motivated them to seek care
(10.5%) or led them to request specific medications from their physicians
(13.3%).
Conclusions
Most physicians have negative views of DTC pharmaceutical advertising and
see several potential effects of these advertisements on the
physician-patient relationship. Many public respondents have similarly
negative views, and only a few agree that they change their expectations of
or interactions with physicians. While these advertisements may be
influencing only a few consumers, it seems that the impact on physicians and
their interactions with patients may be significant.
Staffan Svensson, MD
Dept of Clinical Pharmacology
Sahlgren's Univ Hospital
Gothenburg, Sweden
staffan.svensson@pharm.gu.se
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