Consumer Choice for Over-The-Counter Drugs and Supplements in the Healthcare Arena: Approaches to a Macro-Database across Topics

Abstract

We present a framework to understand how consumers respond to eight areas of over-the-counter (OTC) healthcare, ranging from simple physical examinations as a service to medicinal shampoo as a product. The objective is to understand how the consumer processes information about healthcare such as the information that is currently available on the internet, and whether there exists a higher order set of behaviours that transcend individual OTC product groups. The study comprises a combination of self-profiling to understand the mind of the consumer, and conjoint analysis to understand the choice of features and communications. The study suggests a division of consumers into three segments: those who want a quick fix, those who want a statement of the benefit to them and those who want a detailed explanation of how and why the product works. This segmentation applies to self-medication but not preventive healthcare such as physical examinations and healthy eating, suggesting that these are separate frameworks in the consumers minds. At the macro level, the approach shows the feasibility of creating a new type of database to understand the consumer mind-set.