Beliefs and Potential Use of Prescription Drug Information Sources

Abstract

In recent years consumers are taking more interest in their health care, including having interest in the prescription drugs they take. This research examined people's beliefs and perceptions about using nine sources of prescription drug information. The sources investigated were: (a) physician, (b) pharmacist, (c) family or friend, (d) manufacturer's web site, (e) second-party web sites, (f) medical reference book, (g) manufacturer's consumer phone number, (h) print ads, and (i) television ads. Two hundred thirteen persons were asked to make ratings of these sources according to (1) the likelihood that they would use each source, (2) perceived ease of use to obtain information from each source, and (3) how complete the information would be in providing prescription drug information. The results indicate that the pharmacist and physician sources were in general given significantly higher ratings across all of three dimensions than all the other sources. The two next highly rated sources were family or friend and manufacturer's web site. Television and print ads were rated the lowest among all of the sources. Implications of these results are discussed with emphasis on the Internet as a growing source of prescription drug information.

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References

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