FDA Announces Study on Consumer and HCP Deception Perception

This study would assess whether consumers and healthcare professionals (HCPs) are able to “identify claims as false or misleading, and whether they would be willing to report deceptive drug promotion to the FDA.” The proposed project involves two studies examining volunteer participants’ ability to detect and report deceptive presentations in prescription drug promotion. The studies will be conducted concurrently and will focus on different health conditions. HCPs will view mock pharmaceutical websites targeted toward physicians while consumers will view mock consumer-targeted pharmaceutical websites. The goal will be to keep the HCP and consumer-targeted websites as similar as possible, but to include content that is appropriate for the target audience. For example, HCP websites may contain medical terminology, whereas the consumer websites would utilize consumer friendly language. The FDA believes the ability of consumers and HCPs to identify deceptive prescription drug promotion “has important public health implications,” as consumers who are unable to spot deceptive promotions may “ask their HCPs to prescribe specific drugs that they would not otherwise request.” Additionally, if HCPs are unable to identify deceptive promotion, they “may prescribe specific drugs that they would not otherwise prescribe.” However, OPDP notes that, “on the other hand, if consumers and HCPs are able to identify deceptive promotion, they may appropriately discount or dis...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs