SynthesisQuality & safety in health care2005
Benefits and harms of direct to consumer advertising: a systematic review.
Synthesis in Quality & safety in health care, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 221 citations in OpenAlex.
- Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs and the Patient-Prescriber Encounter: A Systematic Review.Health communication · 2020Pooled it
- Governance arrangements for health systems in low-income countries: an overview of systematic reviews.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2017Pooled it
- Effects of Direct-To-Consumer Advertising on Patient Prescription Requests and Physician Prescribing: A Systematic Review of Psychiatry-Relevant Studies.The Journal of clinical psychiatry · 2016Pooled it
- Factors affecting the uptake of new medicines: a systematic literature review.BMC health services research · 2014Pooled it
- Critical Test of the Beneficial Consequences of Lifting the Ban on Direct-to-Consumer Advertising for Prescription Drugs in Italy: Experimental Exposure and Questionnaire Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Trial
- Are Disease Awareness Links on Prescription Drug Websites Misleading? A Randomized Study.Journal of health communication · 2016Trial
- Role of pill-taking, expectation and therapeutic alliance in the placebo response in clinical trials for major depression.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2014Trial
- Potential spillover educational effects of cancer-related direct-to-consumer advertising on cancer patients' increased information seeking behaviors: results from a cohort study.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2014Trial
- Presenting efficacy information in direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertisements.Patient education and counseling · 2014Trial
- Advertisements impact the physiological efficacy of a branded drug.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2013Trial
- Multi-stakeholder use of patient experience data (PED): current state and future opportunities for the application of PED to inform decision-making.Journal of patient-reported outcomes · 2026Review
- Article
- Where do UK clinicians find information at the point of care? A pragmatic, exploratory study.BMC primary care · 2024Article
- Article
- Misleading Advertising of Health-Related Products in Ecuador during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Health educationFrontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Knowledge, Information Sources, and Institutional Trust of Patients Regarding Medication Use in Pregnancy: A Systematic Review.Journal of family & reproductive health · 2021Review
- Assessing the Inclusion of Foil Items in a Scale to Measure Recognition of Health Messages.Communication methods and measures · 2021Article
- Characterization of US Hospital Advertising and Association With Hospital Performance, 2008-2016.JAMA network open · 2021Article
- Attitude and Purchase Intention to Generic Drugs.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDirect to consumer advertising is increasingly used by the pharmaceutical industry, but its benefits and harms have yet to be summarised in a comprehensive and rigorous manner.
methodsA systematic review was conducted of robust evaluations of the impact (positive and negative) of direct to consumer advertising. A broad range of databases and data sources (including Cinahl, Embase, HMIC, HSRProj, Medline, PsycInfo, and the internet) were searched from inception to 2004.
resultsFrom 2853 citations only four reports were found that met the strict inclusion criteria and provided usable results. Direct to consumer advertising is associated with increased prescription of advertised products and there is substantial impact on patients' request for specific drugs and physicians' confidence in prescribing. No additional benefits in terms of health outcomes were demonstrated. DISCUSSION: Direct to consumer advertising is banned in most countries, and the research evidence tends to support the negative impact that is feared by those who support a legislative ban. Further research is needed into the clinical and economic impact of direct to consumer advertising in healthcare systems.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.