Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20090

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

Banahan BF, Bentley JP, Sun LL, Lee KI
Physicians' attitudes toward and response to direct-to-consumer advertising
AAPS Pharm Sci 1999;
http://www.aapsj.org/abstracts/AM_1999/173.htm

Abstract:

Purpose.
In 1992 the American Medical Association reversed its policy opposing DTCA. A 1998 editorial in Lancet called for physicians to have a mature view about DTCA and the expansion of DTCA to other countries. Obviously the views within the medical community have changed respect to DTCA. In order to assess physicians’ attitudes toward and experiences with DTCA today, questions were included as part of a larger study examining new product adoption. Methods. Telephone interviews were conducted with 199 primary care physicians practicing in Ohio and Pennsylvania during January and February, 1999. The sample frame included physicians who were high-prescribers of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. Respondents were offered a $75 honorarium for participating. Results. Respondents indicated that on average 6 patients per week ask them questions about a specific drug and 36% of the time they prescribe the product in question. Also an average of 5 patients per week ask them to prescribe a specific prescription product and 30% of the time these requests result in prescriptions for the requested product. The frequency of patient requests was not related to specialty or other physician characteristics. When asked about a product, family practitioners were more likely than internists to prescribe the product (40% vs. 32% of the time). Physicians most frequently identified TV ads (77%), print ads (51%), TV news stories (49%) and print news stories (48%) as the sources that stimulated patients to ask about medications. Over half of the respondents (52%) thought the information in prescription ads was only partially accurate while 42% thought it was mostly accurate. Only 9% reported they felt no pressure to prescribe products patients asked about; 38% felt very little pressure; 47% felt a little pressure; and 6% felt a lot of pressure. Conclusions. Physicians appear to have more positive attitudes toward DTCA than in the past and are fairly responsive to patients’ requests. These results indicate that for some product categories, DTCA may be an important factor in prescription product selection. Acknowledgement. This project was supported by a research grant from the R. W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute.