A survey of perceptions and attitudes about direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs among college students in South Korea.

Young-Mo Yang,Eun Jeong,Jae-Joon Lee,Eun Joo Choi,Mi Ah Han,Sun Young Kim,Sara Rubinelli

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0201108

Young-Mo Yang, Eun Jeong + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201108

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Jul 24, 2018
Citations: 3	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Chosun University

Abstract

Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs can be both beneficial and harmful to healthcare consumers. Therefore, DTCA for prescription drugs is a topic that should be considered crucially, at this point, when the interests of patients as well as pharmaceutical companies in DTCA of prescription drugs are growing in South Korea. The goals of this study were to investigate Korean college students’ perceptions and attitudes about DTCA of prescription drugs through a survey as well as to analyze data according to their college majors in order to identify differences in their perceptions and attitudes about prescription drug DTCAs as future health care professionals and consumers, respectively. A descriptive, cross-sectional survey was conducted between September and November 2015. Participants were recruited from Chosun University in Gwangju, South Korea. Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Chosun University Institutional Review Board. Of 1,040 questionnaires initially distributed, 774 were collected, and 742 were included in the analysis. The results of this study indicated that most students who had participated in the survey did not have sufficient knowledge of DTCA for prescription drugs. Approximately, 17% reported being cognizant of DTCA for prescription drugs. More healthcare students (24.6%) knew this term than non-healthcare students did (6.3%). In this study, most of the students were likely to feel that healthcare professionals (e.g., doctors and pharmacists) had the responsibility of delivering information about prescription drugs to patients, and that all prescription drugs DTCA, if it were permitted, had to be pre-approved by the Korean government. The results of this study indicated that DTCA for prescription drugs had to be permitted under the condition of pre-approval of the DTCA contents by the Korean government, and prescription drugs should not be advertised through the Internet. It is recommended that the Korean government cautiously examine whether DTCA of prescription drugs should be permitted, after considering the current marketing strategies of pharmaceutical companies on the Internet and the effects of online electronic-DTCA on Korean consumers.

Highlights

In the United States (U.S.), drug advertising to physicians and patients is a popular marketing strategy in the pharmaceutical industry, which spends approximately twice as much on advertising than on research and development [1,2]
The results of this study indicated that most students who participated in the survey did not have sufficient knowledge about Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs
DTCA for prescription drugs is currently only approved in the U.S and New Zealand, some promotional techniques are utilized in other countries, such as Korea

Summary

Introduction

In the United States (U.S.), drug advertising to physicians and patients is a popular marketing strategy in the pharmaceutical industry, which spends approximately twice as much on advertising than on research and development [1,2]. Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs can be defined as prescription drugs advertising targeted directly at consumers through public media, such as television, radio, newspaper, and Internet [3]. The European Union had considered adopting it for limited prescription drugs associated with AIDS, diabetes, and asthma; its members emphatically refused to accept this idea in order to prevent potential harm to the public due to exposure to the DTCA of prescription drugs [8,9,10]. In Korea, prescription drugs can be advertised only in professional medical and healthcare journals, with the exception of drugs prescribed for the prevention of contagious diseases (e.g., cholera, plague, typhoid fever, influenza, and AIDS), which are allowed to be directly advertised for consumers [9]

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