From today's Post, Doctors Influenced By Mention Of Drug Ads: Offbeat Study Finds Familiar Brand Name Can Evoke Diagnosis
Actors pretending to be patients with symptoms of stress and fatigue were five times as likely to walk out of doctors' offices with a prescription when they mentioned seeing an ad for the heavily promoted antidepressant Paxil, according an unusual study being published today.
The study employed an elaborate ruse -- sending actors with fake symptoms into 152 doctors' offices to see whether they would get prescriptions. Most who did not report symptoms of depression were not given medications, but when they asked for Paxil, 55 percent were given prescriptions, and 50 percent received diagnoses of depression.
Here's the study. One interesting result not mentioned in the article is that while patients who reported the symptoms of major depression were more likely to get prescribed antidepressants if they made a drug request, they were actually less likely to get a prescription if they made a brand-specific request rather than a generic request.
Posted by cradle at April 27, 2005 10:58 PMThis is a mean study! Of course the doc is going to trust the patient to know more about his mental state than the doc could ever know. If the patient thinks he's depressed, the doc is inclined to go along with it. And drug advertising to the general public is a huge problem! Patients do come in saying "I say this ad, I need that drug!"
Posted by: Brooke at April 28, 2005 6:51 AMI've totally participated in this study, only I was not affiliated with these guys.
Posted by: Kim at April 28, 2005 7:26 AMIt never works when you say, "I think I'm ADD can I get some Ritalin or Aderol or something please?"
Posted by: Andrew at April 28, 2005 9:20 AMDoctors really aren't God, and this study seems to confirm that. Infact, I'm not entirely sure that most general practioners couldn't be replaced in a manner that diagnoses better by an AI expert system. Or outsourced to foreign countries!
I think most specialists seem to keep up on the research better, and take a more scientific view of medicine.
Unfortunately, when you ask a US doctor for "Motilium," they either haven't heard of it, or say they are not legally allowed to talk about it... ;)
Posted by: Tom at May 7, 2005 3:29 PMPosted by: Anonymous at December 18, 2006 10:10 AM
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Posted by: uiTomas0k at September 15, 2011 11:11 AM