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Direct-to-Consumer Drug Advertisements Can Paradoxically Increase Intentions to Adopt Lifestyle Changes

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Psychology, October 2016
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Title
Direct-to-Consumer Drug Advertisements Can Paradoxically Increase Intentions to Adopt Lifestyle Changes
Published in
Frontiers in Psychology, October 2016
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01533
Pubmed ID
Authors

Maya B. Mathur, Michael Gould, Nayer Khazeni

Abstract

Background: Direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertisements are thought to induce "boomerang effects," meaning they reduce the perceived effectiveness of a potential alternative option: non-pharmaceutical treatment via lifestyle change. Past research has observed such effects using artificially created, text-only advertisements that may not adequate capture the complex, conflicting portrayal of lifestyle change in real television advertisements. In other risk domains, individual "problem status" often moderates boomerang effects, such that subjects who currently engage in the risky behavior exhibit the strongest boomerang effects. Objectives: We aimed to assess whether priming with real DTC television advertisements elicited boomerang effects on perceptions of lifestyle change and whether these effects, if present, were moderated by individual problem status. Methods: We assembled a sample of real, previously aired DTC television advertisements in order to naturalistically capture the portrayal of lifestyle change in real advertisements. We randomized 819 adults in the United States recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk to view or not view an advertisement for a prescription drug. We further randomized subjects to judge either lifestyle change or drugs on three measures: general effectiveness, disease severity for a hypothetical patient, and personal intention to use the intervention if diagnosed with the target health condition. Results: Advertisement exposure induced a statistically significant, but weak, boomerang effect on general effectiveness (p = 0.01, partial R(2) = 0.007) and did not affect disease severity score (p = 0.32, partial R(2) = 0.0009). Advertisement exposure elicited a reverse boomerang effect of similar effect size on personal intentions, such that advertisement-exposed subjects reported comparatively higher intentions to use lifestyle change relative to drugs (p = 0.006, partial R(2) = 0.008). Individual problem status did not significantly moderate these effects. Conclusion: In contrast to previous literature finding large boomerang effects using artificial advertisement stimuli, real television advertisements elicited only a weak boomerang effect on perceived effectiveness and elicited an unexpected reverse boomerang effect on personal intentions to use lifestyle change versus drugs. These findings may reflect real advertisements' induction of descriptive norms and self-efficacy; future research could address such possibilities by systematically manipulating advertisement content.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 31 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 31 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 5 16%
Researcher 5 16%
Student > Bachelor 2 6%
Other 2 6%
Lecturer 2 6%
Other 7 23%
Unknown 8 26%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 4 13%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 4 13%
Psychology 4 13%
Social Sciences 3 10%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 1 3%
Other 4 13%
Unknown 11 35%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 October 2016.
All research outputs
#13,116,655
of 22,889,074 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Psychology
#12,287
of 30,003 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#163,230
of 321,455 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Psychology
#257
of 452 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,889,074 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 42nd percentile – i.e., 42% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 30,003 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 321,455 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 49th percentile – i.e., 49% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 452 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 43rd percentile – i.e., 43% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.