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If these walls had ears: new research shows how DTC affects patients' conversations with physicians.

Article Excerpt
DTC ADVERTISING HAS CAUSED MORE than its share of controversy both inside and outside the industry. Critics wonder: Are patients paying for drugs they don't need? Meanwhile, industry is still struggling to answer the basics: How effective is DTC in getting patients to request a drug by name? CommonHealth's MBS/Vox division conducted a survey that tried to answer industry's question, and in doing so, inform the wider debate about DTC's role in healthcare.

MBS/Vox peered behind the doors of 172 health providers and studied their conversations with 440 patients. The study sought to determine how often discussions about prescription brands were taking place, and to uncover the correlation between DTC spend and risk-benefit conversations. The study focused on three segments--cholesterol, allergy, and hypertension. These three categories receive different levels of DTC spending (allergy and cholesterol spending is significantly higher than hypertension).

Of the analyzed visits, 291 included mentions of an allergy, cholesterol, or hypertension medication. Of those visits, only 17 references to DTC were made, eight direct (referred to actual ad) and nine indirect. The study found that more than half of the visits in which a medication was discussed included no mention of the risks or benefits of that drug. Of the visits where a risk-benefit discussion took place, more benefits than risks were presented in all three disease categories....