scholarly journals Direct-to-Consumer Chat-Based Remote Care Before and During the COVID-19 Outbreak

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Zeltzer ◽  
Alina Vodonos Zilberg ◽  
Yehuda Edo Paz ◽  
Roy Malka
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Prescription Drugs ◽  
Patient Characteristics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Case Volume ◽  
Fourfold Increase ◽  
Direct To Consumer ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Physician Recommendations

Objective. To compare the patient population, common complaints, and physician recommendations in direct-to-consumer chat-based consults, before and during the COVID-19 outbreak. Data sources. Data on patient characteristics, patient complaints, and physician recommendations from 36,864 chat-based telemedicine consults with physicians in an online-clinic by patients from across the United States between April 2019 and April 2020. Study Design. We perform a retrospective analysis comparing patient characteristics, visit characteristics, and physician recommendation before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. We examine patient age and gender, visit time, patient chief complains, and physician medical recommendation (including prescription drugs, reassurance, and referrals). Principal Findings. Before March 2020, most patients were female (75 percent) and 18-44 years old (89 percent). Common complaints such as abdominal pain, dysuria, or sore throat suggested minor acute conditions. Most cases (67 percent) were resolved remotely, mainly via prescriptions; a minority were referred. Since March 2020, the COVID-19 emergency has led to a sharp (fourfold) increase in case volume, including more males (from 25 to 29 percent), patients aged 45 and older (from 11 to 17 percent), and more cases involving mental health complaints and complaints related to COVID-19. Across all symptoms, significantly more cases (78 percent) have been resolved remotely. Conclusions. The COVID-19 outbreak in the United States has been associated with a sharp increase in the use of chat-based telemedicine services, including by new patient demographics, an increase in both COVID-19 and mental health complains, and an increase in remote case resolutions.

scholarly journals Controversial advertising of medicines. A comparison between Poland and the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 67-79
Author(s):  
Marta Makowska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Prescription Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Direct To Consumer ◽  
Law And Ethics ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Law ◽  
Direct To Consumer Advertising

For many years, the subject of aggressive marketing campaigns conducted by pharmaceutical companies has been raised in Poland. Drug ads are everywhere, on television, the radio, magazines and on the Internet. Therefore, it is extremely important is to ensure both their legal and ethical dimension. This article will present the differences between direct-to-consumer advertising of medicines in Poland and in the US. The dissimilarities result mainly from differences in legislation. In Poland, the law is much stricter than in the US. For example, in the United States companies are allowed to advertise prescription drugs directly to patients. In the whole of the European Union, and thus in Poland, it is strictly prohibited. The article will also present other regulations existing in Poland and in the United States and it will compare them. It will offer examples of violations of the law and ethics in the advertising of medicine in both countries. Lastly, it will briefly outline the negative consequences of unacceptable pharmaceutical marketing.

scholarly journals Bioconstitutional Imaginaries and the Comparative Politics of Genetic Self-knowledge

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 1087-1118
Author(s):  
J. Benjamin Hurlbut ◽  
Ingrid Metzler ◽  
Luca Marelli ◽  
Sheila Jasanoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Genetic Testing ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Direct To Consumer ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Self Knowledge

Genetic testing has become a vehicle through which basic constitutional relationships between citizens and the state are revisited, reaffirmed, or rearticulated. The interplay between the is of genetic knowledge and the ought of government unfolds in the context of diverse imaginaries of the forms of human well-being, freedom, and flourishing that states have a duty to support. This article examines how the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States governed testing for Alzheimer’s disease, and how they diverged in defining potential harms, benefits, and objects of regulation. Comparison before and after the arrival of direct-to-consumer genetic tests reveals differences in national understandings of what it means to protect life and citizenship: in the United Kingdom, ensuring physical wellness through clinical utility; in the United States, protecting both citizens’ physical well-being and freedom to choose through a framework of consumer protection; and in Germany, emphasizing individual flourishing and an unburdened sense of human development that is expressed in genetic testing law and policy as a commitment to the stewardship of personhood. Operating with their own visions of what it means to protect life and citizenship, these three states arrived at settlements that coproduced substantially different bioconstitutional regimes around Alzheimer’s testing.

scholarly journals Suicide prevention in pharmaceutical education: Raising awareness with inspiring stories

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe D. Vincent ◽  
Pierre-Marie David
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Suicide Prevention ◽  
Prescription Drugs ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Training Session ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pharmacy Students ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Suicide rates are high in high-income countries like Canada and the United States, where 10 to 12 people per 100 000 commit suicide every year. In the United States, in 2011 there were 73.3 emergency room visits per 100 000 people for suicide attempts with prescription drugs. The latter were also involved in 13% of completed suicides between 1999 and 2013. In most cases, these drugs were distributed by members of our profession who could not predict this outcome. This led us to create an initiative to teach pharmacy students how to prevent suicide. A literature review and online search were performed to find documentation about pharmacists' commitment to the cause, but very little information exists. Thus, a training session was developed for third-year pharmacy students that includes basic statistics, arguments for involving pharmacists in suicide prevention, role-playing, tools to evaluate suicide risk, thoughtful verbatims of interview techniques, and case studies. It is delivered during the mental health theme of the psychiatry course. In 5 years, around 1150 students have participated in the course, of whom approximately 950 are now practicing pharmacists. This intervention may have prevented some suicides, although the impact is impossible to measure. The objective of this paper is to describe the creative process of designing a suicide prevention training session for pharmacy students, while inspiring a mental health sensitive readership to this noble cause. This article does not provide guidelines on how to replicate this initiative, nor does this article replace proper training on suicide prevention.

Healthworlds, Cultural Health Toolkits, and Choice: How Acculturation Affects Patients’ Views of Prescription Drugs and Prescription Drug Advertising

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 1419-1432
Author(s):  
Crystal Adams ◽  
Brittany M. Harder ◽  
Anwesa Chatterjee ◽  
Liza Hayes Mathias
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Prescription Drug ◽  
Prescription Drugs ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
The United States ◽  
Drug Advertising ◽  
Direct To Consumer ◽  
Direct To Consumer Advertising ◽  
Level Of Acculturation

How do minorities differ from Whites in their interactions with the broader consumeristic health culture in the United States? We explore this question by investigating the role that acculturation plays in minority and White patients’ views of prescription drugs and the direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs. Drawing on data from six race-based focus groups, we find that patients’ views of prescription drugs affect their responses to DTCA. While both minorities and Whites value the information they receive from DTCA, level of acculturation predicts how minorities use the information they receive from DTCA. Less acculturated minorities have healthworlds and cultural health toolkits that are not narrowly focused on prescription drugs. This results in skepticism on the part of less acculturated minorities toward pharmaceuticals as treatment options. In this article, we argue that researchers must consider the role acculturation plays in explaining patients’ health dispositions and their consumeristic health orientations.

Can Viagra Advertising Make More Babies? Direct-to-Consumer Advertising on Public Health Outcomes

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 599-616
Author(s):  
Tongil “TI” Kim ◽  
Diwas KC
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Prescription Drugs ◽  
Birth Rate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Television Advertising ◽  
Purchase Decision ◽  
Multiple Birth ◽  
Direct To Consumer

Although product advertising has been widely studied and understood in relation to the consumer’s purchase decision, advertising may also have unintended but important societal and economic consequences. In this article, the authors examine a public health outcome—birth rate—associated with advertisements for erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs. Since the United States loosened regulations on direct-to-consumer television advertising for prescription drugs in 1997, ED drug makers have consistently been top spenders. By comparing advertising data with multiple birth data sets (patient-level hospital data from Massachusetts between 2001 and 2010 and micro birth certificate data from the United States between 2000 and 2004), the authors demonstrate that increased ED drug television advertising leads to a higher birth rate. Their results, which are robust with respect to different functional forms and falsification tests, show that a 1% increase in ED drug advertising contributes to an increase of .04%–.08% of total births. Their findings suggest that beyond the customer purchase decision, advertising can have important public health outcomes, with resulting implications for managerial decision making and policy formulation.

scholarly journals Open access is not enough ??? the source is also important

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Fenner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Prescription Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Direct To Consumer ◽  
Drug Companies ◽  
Direct To Consumer Advertising

Direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) ??? advertising for prescription drugs ??? is only allowed in the United States (since 1997, when restrictions were loosened) and New Zealand. Drug companies pay for direct to consumer advertising (more than $4 billion in 2005 (Donohue 2007)) ...

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