Placement of Benefits and Risks in Prescription Drug Manufacturers' Websites and Information Source Expectations

Abstract

Two studies addressed aspects related to consumers obtaining risk information about prescription drugs. The first study surveyed people's beliefs and perceptions concerning the use of nine potential sources of prescription drug information (eg, physicians and pharmacists). Two hundred thirteen participants were asked to rate potential sources of prescription drug information according to: (1) likelihood-of-use, (2) perceived ease-of-use, and (3) completeness of information. Because manufacturers' direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug websites were rated relatively high in Study 1, a second study was conducted to examine how benefit and risk information was being presented in manufacturers' DTC websites. Study 2 consisted of an examination of website characteristics (eg, the number-of-clicks and amount of scrolling required) of 20 randomly chosen manufacturers' DTC prescription drug websites in two separate time periods (March 2001 and July 2003). The current results suggest that risk information is more difficult to access than benefit information. Implications for the delivery of risk information are discussed with particular emphasis on the growing use of the World Wide Web.

Keywords

Benefits Risks Prescription Drug Manufacturers Websites

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