Also Included In: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 10 Dec 2011 - 0:00 PST
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Spam advertising of pharmaceutical products is leading patients to seek out information about prescription drugs online, according to a report to be published in the International Journal Business and Systems Research. If those drugs are not available to the internet user through their physician there is a risk that they may obtain such products via illicit means.
The direct advertising of pharmaceutical products to patients is outlawed in several countries, but spam marketing is all-pervasive and wholly ignores national and international laws. It exists because a sale to even a tiny percentage of the hundreds of millions of people targeted every single day with product offers nets the spammers a profit. Now, Sanjoy Ghose and Vikas Lachhwani of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, have investigated how exposure to spam offering prescription pharmaceuticals motivates individuals to seek additional information on the internet.
Prescription drugs improve health and extend life for many millions of people and it is perhaps natural that patients will seek information about their medication from a variety of sources other than their medical practitioner despite the fact that it is only such a practitioner who can legally prescribe that medication. However, the relationship between patient and pharmaceutical company has changed significantly over the last few decades, and most recently with the advent of the commercial internet and the World Wide Web.
"Over the last few decades, there has been a marked change in the way firms view the patient-drug interface," the team reports. "Patients are now more like 'consumers' and prescription drugs 'consumer products. Marketers now communicate directly with consumers through advertisements where it is legal to do so." There has been much debate over DTCA, direct-to-consumer advertising, but little ongoing discussion of the effect of internet-based communication on consumers. Specifically, there have been very few empirical analyses on the determinants of information seeking over the internet for prescription drugs, the team asserts. They point out that most of the earlier research has focused on consumers' responses in terms of interaction with physicians, and requests for specific drugs after exposure to advertising.
The team's study reveals that exposure to prescription drug spam motivates patients to seek further information over the internet. The reason for this could be the skepticism associated with advertising in general and especially for the case of unregulated spam-based advertising. However, the finding is a double-edged sword as the information seeking might also be associated with attempting to procure prescription medication from sources other than a medical practitioner. The data they report should help move the debate in this area forward and allow policy makers to better determine the impact of medical marketing on patients.
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.Visit our it / internet / e-mail section for the latest news on this subject. "Online information seeking for prescription drugs" in Int. J. Business and Systems Research, 2011, 6, 1-17
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11 Dec. 2011.
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posted by Dr Armitage on 10 Dec 2011 at 10:19 pm
I am always amazed at patients who will spend a few minutes or hours on the internet and then bring me information that they have cherry-picked to their liking.
I remind them that I had 16 years education prior to medical school, and 4 years there and then 4 years of residency with intensive study, and then 16 years practicing medicine since then. I then ask them about the level of certainty that they have on their internet information.
The point is, I had my 10,000 hours necessary to be a master at my art about 20,000 hours ago. There is no way that they can spend 3 or 10 or 100 hours looking up internet information and even approach my level of expertise.
Most of them get it, and are reassured in my care. Some few steadfastly hold to their opinions in the face of such overwhelming logic, which just shows the truism that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink!
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