Assessment of the impact of pharmaceutical advertisements on patient’s drug consuming behavior: A questionnaire based survey

Objective: The objective was to assess of the impact of pharmaceutical advertisements on patients drug consuming behavior. Methodology: This was 6 months cross-sectional survey using a validated open-ended scored questionnaire administered to 300 respondents. The locus of the study was a tertiary care rural hospital in India. The respondents were pre-briefed about the study. Voluntary participation and strict confi dentiality were maintained. Responses to the questionnaire were evaluated and analyzed statistically. Results: Our results showed that pharmaceutical advertising has an important effect on drug consuming behavior of patients. It was seen that advertisements featuring antacids, health tonics and supplements, analgesic tablets and creams, antifl atulents and digestives, cold rubs and tablets as well as cough syrups had a high recall value (>50%). It was seen that patients were keen on buying the drugs after an exposure to direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA). Conclusions: DTCA does have an impact on consumer behavior. Increasing the health messages in advertisements, with less emphasis on the specifi c medication and more on the overall disease state is the moral obligation on the part of the pharmaceutical industry.