This study is designed as the building of a foundation in standardizing best practices when designing Direct-to-Consumer messaging. With this being a new and expanding field of marketing and advertising for the high visibility pharmaceutical industry, an establishment of conceptual templature, around which Direct-to-Consumer messaging campaign can be built, offers an opportunity to build a new and vibrant branch on the well-established messaging field. This is particularly important when recognizing the unique needs and requirements of both the pharmaceutical industry and its audience in learning of and about new products. This study attempted to identify current perception of Direct-to-Consumer practices by industry laypersons with in-depth interviews conducted through a phenomenological framework. Participants were interviewed on a range of relevant areas, including directly regarding their perception as well as a broader collection of their thoughts and impressions. The results of this study show clear areas of interest, identifying various tactics and strategies employed within Direct-to-Consumer messaging and pointing to areas of potential perception cultivation by those crafting the message. The study also uncovered the presence of the Third-Person Effect playing a key role in determining the response of participants on perception, and potentially opening the door for integrated methods that have been developed with Third-Person Effect in mind when building messages. This study offers a significant first-step of study into the phenomenon of Direct-to-Consumer advertising, as well as a foundation upon which future, larger scale, and more generalizable research can be done.

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為國民的健康把關，通常是政府作為實現國民健康權的一種具體作為，有關國民的用藥安全更是政府責無旁貸的責任。本論文著眼於「虛擬藥房」的藥品廣告刺激一般常民用藥的消費過程，政府基於保護國民健康所採取的介入方式是「法規範」對藥品廣告的管理，此種管理方式隨著藥品本身與商業言論的時空變遷會有緊縮或放寬的變革，然而易侷限於專業精英討論的上層層次；後有主管機關意識到常民健康的落實須直達正確的用藥觀念，以健康促進作為彌補上層可能無法下達困境的下層層次。 本論文以為，此二層次對應的概念仍屬「由上對下」的意識，亦即「政府」下對「常民」的概念。這種由上而下的把關做法，在維護國民「健康權」的國家、社會與個人法益上固然有其必要；惟欲落實整體健康權的實踐，仍須回歸「健康素養」的具體貫徹。亦即，本論文主張政府所主導的法規範或健康促進的作為，必須同時伴隨常民健康素養的賦權，兼顧「由下而上」的作法，不斷促使法規範與社會現實互為主體，則法規範才能真實維護與實踐國民的「健康權」。 / It is the constitutional and legal responsibility of the State to protect people’s health and achieve “the right to health” via, among others, the provision of safe medicines. The vast amounts of advertisings have challenged the State to providing safety access to medicines. This thesis focuses on the advertisings of “virtual pharmacies”, and attempts to investigate how they stimulate consumer behaviors. Legally, the State controls pharmaceutical advertising by means of various different legislative and administrative measures. Nonetheless, this “top-down” process has had only limited effects due to rapid social change and the evolution of the protection of commercial speech. This thesis argues that, to fill the gap, the promotion and development of “health literacy”, i.e. a “bottom-up” way, could be the answer to a meaningful control of pharmaceutical advertisings. This thesis conducts empirical analyses and applies them to various theories of political economy regarding pharmaceutical advertising. Moreover, the relationships between “health literacy” and “the right to health” are also elaborated. It is argued that to substantiate the constitutional “right to health”, the best way is to promote and develop the concept of “health literacy”. Only through empowering the consumers with the proper knowledge of “health literacy” can the State, assisted by the implementation of relevant laws, fulfills its responsibility. “Health literacy” is as important as law itself, and the latter cannot satisfactorily operate to arrive at the desired results without the construction of the former.

Known as direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA), pharmaceutical companies in the United States are permitted to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if an association exists between DTCA and health care-seeking behaviors. The theoretical framework for this study involved social learning theory, information integration theory, and prospect theory. The research questions identified if exposure to DTCA (a) is associated with physician office visits, (b) influences a patient/physician conversation regarding a prescription, (c) influences requesting a prescription, and (d) has an impact on patients' ratings of the overall interaction with the physician. Data were derived from an online survey adapted from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Participants included 235 college-affiliated adults. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and analysis of variance. The Bonferroni correction was used to control the family-wise Type I error rate. The most significant findings of this study are that DTCA is associated with patients asking more questions, having more office visits, and patients having a lower overall health status. Future researchers should consider a non-college-affiliated sample and the post-implementation impact of the Affordable Care Act. This study helps to address the community challenges of how DTCA impacts prescription drug use and costs, as well as patients' understanding of the associated risks. Having knowledge of the impact of DTCA can help patients and their communities, employers, and governments make more informed decisions that will positively impact their health, wellbeing, and prescription expenses.