How susceptible are you to flashy graphics touting a drug’s benefits? Can a 3-minute read – that gives you a drug’s gist but not much more – influence your prescription preferences? Do you review methodological rigor of a drug’s underlying clinical studies before prescribing it? Which influences your prescribing preferences more often, physician marketing promos or medical journal abstracts?
If you don’t have time – or inclination – to ponder these questions than just wait until the FDA’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP) finishes its new study. The study, announced on July 18, will determine “how physician perception of professional prescription drug communications is influenced by variations in information context, methodological rigor of the underlying clinical study, and time pressure.”1 OPDP will first conduct a smaller pretest with 158 voluntary participants, to make sure everything is working as planned, and then move on to the main study with 566 voluntary participants. Volunteers will be limited to board-certified internists.
The study will revolve around a made up “new” drug, and the OPDP will present the fabricated drug’s info in three different vehicles: a medical journal abstract, a sales aid without graphic design elements, and a sales aid with graphic design elements. In other words, does presentation matter?
As for assessing how time constraints affect a practicing physician’s interpretation of drug communications, half of the study participants will have two minutes to read materials and the other half will be able to read at their leisure.
In case you’re wondering, OPDP’s mission is to “protect the public health by helping to ensure that prescription drug information is truthful, balanced, and accurately communicated, so that patients and health care providers can make informed decisions about treatment options.”
Resources:
