How Does Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Affect Prescribing? A Survey in Primary Care Environments With and Without Legal DTCA.
| Authors | Mintzes B, Barer ML, Kravitz RL, Bassett K, Lexchin J, Kazanjian A, Evans RG, Pan R, Marion SA |
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| Source | Canadian Medical Association Journal. 2003 September 2;169(5):405-412. |
| Abstract | Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs has increased rapidly in the United States during the last decade, yet little is known about its effects on prescribing decisions in primary care. This study compared prescribing decisions in a US setting with legal DTCA and a Canadian setting where DTCA of prescription drugs is illegal, but some cross-border exposure occurs. Primary care physicians working in Sacramento, California, and Vancouver, BC, and their group practice partners were recruited to participate in the study. On pre-selected days, patients aged 18 years or more completed a questionnaire before seeing their physician. We asked these patients' physicians to complete a brief questionnaire immediately following the selected patient visit. By pairing individual patient and physician responses, we determined how many patients had been exposed to some form of DTCA, the frequency of patients' requests for prescriptions for advertised medicines and the frequency of prescriptions that were stimulated by the patients' requests. We measured physicians' confidence in treatment choice for each new prescription by asking them whether they would prescribe this drug to a patient with the same condition. Our results suggest that more advertising leads to more requests for advertised medicines, and more prescriptions. If DTCA opens a conversation between patients and physicians, that conversation is highly likely to end with a prescription, often despite physician ambivalence about treatment choice. |
| Code | CHSPR 03:13R |
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