BMJ 2002;324:278-279 ( 2 February )

Primary care

Influence of direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertising and patients' requests on prescribing decisions: two site cross sectional survey

Barbara Mintzes, graduate researcher ^a, Morris L Barer, professor ^a, Richard L Kravitz, professor and director ^c, Arminée Kazanjian, acting director ^a, Ken Bassett, senior medical consultant ^a, Joel Lexchin, associate professor ^d, Robert G Evans, professor ^a, Richard Pan, executive director ^e, Stephen A Marion, associate professor ^b. 

^a Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, Canada V6T 1Z3, ^b Department of Health Care and Epidemiology, University of British Columbia, Canada, ^c Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, University of California, Davis, Sacramento CA, 95817 USA, ^d School of Health Policy and Management, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3, ^e PC-AWARE, Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, University of California Davis Medical Centre, Davis

Correspondence to: B Mintzes bmintzes@chspr.ubc.ca

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Only the United States and New Zealand allow advertising of prescription drugs directed at patients. US spending on such advertising grew rapidly during the 1990s, reaching $2.47bn (£1650m) in 2000.¹ The dramatic increase in investment by the US pharmaceutical industry is evidence of an expected effect on sales. On the rationale that such advertising provides important information to consumers and patients who may benefit from advertised products, pharmaceutical manufacturers have campaigned in the European Union² and Canada³ for the relaxing of current regulatory restrictions. We examined the relation between direct to consumer advertising and patients' requests for prescriptions and the relation between patients' requests and prescribing decisions.

Table Removed (Available Only in the Full Text)

	Participants, methods, and results

We carried out a cross sectional survey of a cluster sample of primary care patients in Sacramento, California, from March to June 2001 and in Vancouver, British Columbia, from June to August 2000. We used questionnaires to determine the frequency of patients' requests for prescriptions . . . [Full text of this article]

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