Two studies addressed aspects related to consumers obtaining risk information about prescription drugs. The first study surveyed people's beliefs and perceptions concerning the use of nine potential sources of prescription drug information (eg, physicians and pharmacists). Two hundred thirteen participants were asked to rate potential sources of prescription drug information according to: (1) likelihood-of-use, (2) perceived ease-of-use, and (3) completeness of information. Because manufacturers' direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug websites were rated relatively high in Study 1, a second study was conducted to examine how benefit and risk information was being presented in manufacturers' DTC websites. Study 2 consisted of an examination of website characteristics (eg, the number-of-clicks and amount of scrolling required) of 20 randomly chosen manufacturers' DTC prescription drug websites in two separate time periods (March 2001 and July 2003). The current results suggest that risk information is more difficult to access than benefit information. Implications for the delivery of risk information are discussed with particular emphasis on the growing use of the World Wide Web.
Pictorial development and testing can be a costly and inefficient process. The process of designing and testing pictorial symbols could benefit from a precursor test to determine the likelihood that a concept will permit the design of a successful symbol (according to subsequent comprehension testing). This study examines whether ratings of the concepts of to-be-designed symbols could be useful in the prediction of comprehension of the ensuing symbols for those concepts. Participants rated 50 text descriptions (referent plus further verbal context) on: (1) how concrete is this concept?(2) how easy is it to visualize this concept?; and (3) how effective would a simple picture be in conveying this concept? These ratings served as predictors of the population estimates and openended comprehension scores obtained from previous research by Young and Wogalter (2001). Results showed that there was a high correlation between the measures used in this study with both population estimates and open-ended comprehension scores. Ease of visualization of a concept had the highest predictive value with concreteness, being the second highest predictor. Measures of the ease of visualization or imaging a concept may be useful preliminary tools for pictorial designers.
This research was conducted to determine how risk information is presented within direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertisements on the World Wide Web (WWW). Twenty prescription drug manufacturers' web sites were examined with respect to risk and benefit information placement. Measured were (a) the number of clicks required to view the benefit and risk information from the home page, (b) the number of clicks to the risk information from the benefit information, (c) the number of clicks to the benefit information from the risk information, (d) and whether scrolling was required to view both benefit and risk information. Also measured were whether the benefit and risk information was on the same page and whether a separate file reader was needed to view the risk information. Results indicated that the risk information is more difficult to find on DTC prescription medication web site advertisements compared to benefits. More clicks from the home page were required to find the risk information than the benefits. Also, scrolling was required more often to find the risk information compared to the benefits. Implications of these results are discussed with respect to the equal balance of risk and benefit information that is required by U.S. Federal Regulations.
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