DTC Drug Ads Are Effective, But Confusing to Patients Say Physicians

Results from a new "microsurvey" (N = 319) performed by InCrowd, a provider of real-time market intelligence to the life sciences and healthcare firms, reveal "perhaps surprising" U.S. healthcare provider (HCP) perceptions on the efficacy of direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads. Specifically, HCPs say DTC drug ads drove patients to asks three times as many questions today than they did 5 years ago, but 87% observed patient confusion with ads.

This sounds impressive, but looking at the data, HCPs say they receive only 6 questions about DTC drug ads per week from patients vs. 2 times per week 5 years ago. It just may be that HCPs are more aware of DTC ads today than they were 5 years ago and that is influencing their perception of the number of questions they receive from patients specifically about these ads.

The "confusion" results are more interesting.

A majority of HCPs surveyed (65%) said that patients do not generally understand the information provided by the pharmaceutical companies in advertisements, and nearly 87% of HCPs observed some level of confusion with the ads. 43% said that “some of my patients” can understand or interpret them, 41% said that “few” patients understand the ads, and 3% said that “none of my patients” can understand the ads.

The increased physician awareness of DTC ads and the patient confusion that they cause may explain why 35% of physicians surveyed said DTC ads should be banned when asked what they would do to change pharma's DTC campaigns. 31% said the ads should provide additional information, and 17% said they should "simplify" the message. Only a paltry 3% said they would include cost information (see chart).

That only 7% of HCPs said they would like to see side effects explained is surprising considering the results of another survey.

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