The purpose of the study was to determine how often and to what degree imprecise frequency descriptors are used in prescription drug print ads. These descriptors along with the side effects they describe were compared to their corresponding prescription medicine websites and analyzed to determine whether or not the general public is being misinformed and/or misled in terms of side effect warnings by current drug advertising. Content analysis of Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertisements found in five of the top seven magazines most likely to be consumed by readers over age 65 was the method of investigation for this study. The time frame of the magazines studied, was, August 2002 to July 2003.
Using SPSS and descriptive statistics, results indicated that within DTC advertising, there is a great potential to mislead. For example, all of the side effects listed in the advertisements were also listed on their corresponding drug websites. Though, in some cases, the side effects with the highest incidence percentages on the websites were not listed at all in the advertised side effect warning. Some side effects with incidence levels of over 30% on the websites were listed in the advertisements but were provided with imprecise frequency descriptors such as may include or most common. The difference in website and magazine side effect descriptions present a question of credibility. It appears from the discrepancy between the website side effect descriptions and magazine side effect warnings that the magazines are at best incomplete and probably misleading.
Possible suggestions for correcting the situation could include mandatory guidelines for side effect warnings including the number of side effects, inclusion of percentages, font size, and placement of the side effect warning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-07062004-150234 |
| Date | 07 July 2004 |
| Creators | Zangla, Mikah |
| Contributors | Stephen Banning, Richard Nelson, Denis Wu |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-07062004-150234/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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