Visual images of prescription drug benefits in direct-to-consumer television advertisements.
Helen W Sullivan, Amie C O'Donoghue, Molly Lynch and 4 others
PMID 33618970WHAT IT FOUND
Exaggerated images of improvement in drug ads made older adults less likely to understand that the drug improves but does not eliminate the problem.
Adding numbers about benefit helped recall, but did not always correct the misleading image effect.
Key findings
01In the vision ad, exaggerated images reduced understanding that vision would improve but not return to normal; without quantitative information, 63.3% versus 82.0% understood this correctly.
02In the psoriasis ad, exaggerated images reduced understanding that the drug does not eliminate skin problems; without quantitative information, 18.7% versus 32.9% understood this correctly.
03Participants who saw quantitative information were more likely to answer recall questions correctly in both studies.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Most participants were at risk for the conditions, but only a small percentage reported having been diagnosed, so they were not typical patients. The sample was older adults from an online consumer panel, so results may not represent the general population. Participants with lower numeracy may have been underrepresented, which could reduce the ability to detect numeracy effects. The ads used fictitious drugs created for the study.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that adding numbers always cancels the effect of an exaggerated image. In the vision study, the exaggerated image effect on understanding that vision would not return to normal was not significant when numbers were present, and the overestimation effect was also not significant.