The Impact of Denying a Direct-to-Consumer Advertised Drug Request on the Patient/Physician Relationship

Abstract

Using a scenario-based approach, an experiment is conducted to test whether the decision a physician makes to deny a prescription request (when a patient has requested a drug he or she has seen in a direct-to-consumer [DTC] ad) significantly impacts patient outcomes such as patient satisfaction and compliance intentions. The results suggest physicians can expect patient response to the denial of such a request to vary by the patient's gender in addition to the criticality of the condition being treated. The results also suggest, when treating less critical conditions, a physician can mitigate the negative effects of a denial with relatively little additional effort.

KEYWORDS:

• direct-to-consumer advertising
• patient satisfaction
• patient/physician relationship

Notes

Note. Subjects were asked to indicate the extent to which they felt each condition is life-threatening on a scale from 1 to 7 with 1 = not at all life threatening and 7 = very life threatening.