Direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs: what are Americans being sold?

Background Pharmaceutical companies spent US$1.8 billion on direct-to-consu mer advertisements for prescription drugs in 1999. Our aim was to establish what messages are being communicated to the public by these advertisements . Methods We investigated the content of advertisements, which appeared in te n magazines in the USA. We examined seven issues of each of these published between July, 1998, and July, 1999. Findings 67 advertisements appeared a total of 211 times during our study. Of these, 133 (63%) were for drugs to ameliorate symptoms, 54 (26%) to trea t disease, and 23 (11%) to prevent illness. In the 67 unique advertisements , promotional techniques used included emotional appeals (45, 67%) and enco uragement of consumers to consider medical causes for their experiences (26 , 39%). More advertisements described the benefit of medication with vague, qualitative terms (58, 87%), than with data (9, 13%). However, half the ad vertisements used data to describe side-effects, typically with lists of si de-effects that generally occurred infrequently. None mentioned cost. Interpretation Provision of complete information about the benefit of presc ription drugs in advertisements would serve the interests of physicians and the public.