Effects of mass, interpersonal and hybrid communication on patients' requests for prescription drugs

This study examines the effectiveness of an approach proposed in the Guidance for Industry about Consumer-directed Broadcast Advertisements in fulfilling the adequate provision requirement, 21 CFR 202.1(e)(1), of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act issued by the Food and Drug Administration. The approach advises the pharmaceutical industry to use four communication channels to enable consumers to seek information for the prescription drug being broadcasted: a toll-free number (hybrid communication channel), print ad with detailed information (mass communication channel), the internet (hybrid communication channel) and a disclosure in the advertisement that healthcare providers (interpersonal communication channels) may provide additional product information to consumers. In this study, the effectiveness of the approach is measured by patients' requests for prescription drugs from their doctors after perusing the information through the four channels. Several logistic models are created by using a survey data collected by the Food and Drug Administration to compare the effectiveness of the channels. The results provide new insights to the elaboration likelihood model and create a hierarchy of persuasive effectiveness among the channels according to their transactional and response dependent capability.