Content analysis of efficacy descriptions on branded pharmaceutical websites

Abstract

FDA’s regulation of Direct-to-Consumer pharmaceutical advertising requires fair balance between the communication of risk and benefit information. The fair balance requirement has stimulated a significant amount of research focused on the communication of risk information with much less investigation of the communication of benefit and efficacy information. This is unfortunate, since fair balance cannot be achieved if consumers do not have an accurate understanding of how well a drug works. This research uses content analysis to determine how efficacy information is communicated on branded pharmaceutical websites. The content analysis is based on the creation of a media-neutral framework for the classification of efficacy descriptions. The content analysis of 63 branded pharmaceutical websites showed that less than 5% of all drugs provide a complete, specific, and numeric description of drug efficacy while nearly 80% describe drug efficacy exclusively in vague and general terms. Implications of the findings for the regulation of Direct to Consumer communications via branded drug websites are presented.