FDA Direct-to-Consumer Advertising for Prescription Drugs: What Are Consumer Preferences and Response Tendencies?

Abstract

The effect of direct-to-consumer (DTC) television advertising of prescription medications is a growing concern of the United States (U.S.) Congress, state legislatures, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This research study was conducted in order to examine consumers' perceived preferences of DTC television advertisement in relation to "reminder" "help-seeking," and "product-claim" FDA-approved advertisement categories. An additional objective was to examine the influence of DTC television advertising of prescription drugs on consumers' tendency to seek more information about the medication and/or the medical condition. The research indicates that DTC television drug ads appear to be insufficient for consumers to make informed decisions. Their mixed perception and acceptance of the advertisements seem to influence them to seek more information from a variety of medical sources.

Contribution of Communication Inequalities to Disparities in Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Awareness and Knowledge

“…17 Moreover, research shows that consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet, over other channels, to search for more information about a drug they saw on television. 18,19 With increased advertising spending, concerns have been raised that print and TV DTCA may mislead consumers with unbalanced and incomplete information making the reliance on external searching, specifically Internet information seeking, even more crucial. 19 Unfortunately, reliance on Internet-based external searches to provide needed information for informed decision-making on HPV vaccination could only exacerbate existing knowledge gaps.…”

Use and Perceived Credibility of Medication Information Sources for Patients with a Rare Illness: Differences by Gender

“…This increase is due to a number of factors, including the growth of health-related Web sites on the Internet (Cline & Haynes, 2001; Fox & Rainie, 2000), direct-to-consumer drug advertisements (Khanfar, Loudon, & Sicar-Ramsewak, 2007), policy changes to improve medication package inserts (Amery, 1999), and increased patient advocacy and consumerism (Dutta-Bergman, 2005). Given the growing number of information sources, the variability in quality across sources (Berland et al, 2001; Thompson & Graydon, 2009), and the relation between information and positive patient outcomes (Rutten, Arora, Bakos, Aziz, & Rowland, 2005), it is important to understand where patients obtain information about their medications.…”

Relationship between direct-to-consumer advertising and consumers’ decision-making

“…Therefore, the null hypothesis is accepted, which states that the medical information source does not affect CDM, at ␣ Յ 0.05. Sewak et al (2005) supported this result and stated Web site design does not affect promotional objectives, Kon et al (2008) concluded that information and instructions received from physicians are more accurate than those informed by DTCA and Khanfar et al (2009) indicated that DTCA via television appear to be insufficient for CDM. H 0 3.…”

“…Kon et al (2008) mentioned: those patients who reported receiving instruction from their physician had concepts more consistent with the current data and guidelines than those informed from other sources, such as DTCA. Khanfar et al (2009) indicated that DTC television drug advertisement appear to be insufficient for consumers to make informed decisions. Glinert (2010) concluded that: prescription drug brand Web sites present a confused mix of brand and health information and a poor indication of authority.…”