Direct-to-Consumer Drug Advertisements Can Paradoxically Increase Intentions to Adopt Lifestyle Changes

Direct-to-Consumer Drug Advertisements Can Paradoxically Increase Intentions to Adopt Lifestyle Changes

Background: Direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertisements are thought to induce "boomerang effects," meaning they reduce the perceived effectiveness of a potential alternative option: non-pharmaceutical treatment via lifestyle change. Past research has observed such effects using artificially created, text-only advertisements that may not adequate capture the complex, conflicting po...

A content analysis of direct-to-consumer television prescription drug advertisements.

This article reports the results of a content analysis of 23 direct-to-consumer (DTC) product-specific television prescription drug advertisements broadcast during 2001. A majority of ads used both medical and lay terms to convey medical ideas. Most gave consumers somewhat more time to absorb facts about benefits than those about risks, which could have implications for the "fair balance" requi...

Direct-to-consumer drug advertisements on network television: an exploration of quantity, frequency, and placement.

Prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) drug advertisements that appear on television are among the most common forms of health communication reaching the U.S. public, but no studies to date have explored the quantity, frequency, or placement of these ads on television. We explored these questions by recording all programs and advertisements that appeared on network television in a southeastern...

Randomized trial of risk information formats in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements.

BACKGROUND Federal regulations specify that print advertisements for prescription drugs and biological products must provide a true statement of information "in brief summary" about each advertised product's "side effects, contraindications, and effectiveness." Some of the current approaches to fulfilling the brief summary requirement, although adequate from a regulatory perspective, result in ...

Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.