Taking your medicine? Attitudes toward direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (1997) reinterpretation of existing regulatory guidelines facilitated a substantial increase in direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription medicines. Consumer attitudes toward this regulatory phenomenon and their political implications have been understudied by social scientists. This study develops and tests several individual-level explanations, and shows that there are no simple explanations for understanding support for DTCA, including a tempting appeal to what a person thinks about the doctor–patient relationship. We use an ordered probit analysis to find that searching for health information on the internet, education, and ethnicity are strong and consistent predictors of support for DTCA. As patterns of support for DTCA vary across important segments of the population, we find that DTCA support is increased by select characteristics generally associated with weaker outcomes from the American health system.

► Important divides exist when predicting individual level patterns of support for DTCA.
► The shared decision making model can help explain consumer support for increased DTCA.
► Searching for health information on the Internet, education, and ethnicity are strong predictors of support for DTCA.
► DTCA support is increased by select characteristics generally associated with weaker health outcomes.
► Patterns of support for increased DTCA are not necessarily uniform across important segments of the population.