Do antidepressant advertisements educate consumers and promote communication between patients with depression and their physicians?
OBJECTIVE: To examine how online depression support group members respond to direct-to-consumer (DTC) antidepressant advertising. METHODS: Survey of 148 depression forum members, administered via an online questionnaire. RESULTS: Chronicity was high, as 79.1% had received a diagnosis of depression 3 or more years earlier. Respondents reported seeing advertisements for an average of 4.3 of seven brands investigated. A majority rated the information quality of these advertisements as “poor” or “fair.” Attitudes toward antidepressant advertisements were neutral (mean: 2.96 on a five-point scale). More than half (52.4%) visited official websites provided in these advertisements, 39.9% had talked with a doctor after seeing an advertisement, 20.3% made an advertisement-induced prescription request, and 25.7% said these advertisements reminded them to take their antidepressants. Amount of attention given to these advertisements correlated positively with belief in the brain chemical imbalance
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