The Fact
In a randomized controlled trial using standardized patients, antidepressant prescribing changed substantially depending on whether the patient made a medication request. A later systematic review concluded with moderate confidence that direct-to-consumer-advertising-related requests are granted most of the time and increase prescribing volume.
What This Means
A prescription decision is not produced only by diagnosis plus physician judgment in isolation. What a patient asks for—something advertising can influence—can measurably alter prescribing behavior.
Sources
- Kravitz et al., JAMA 2005, randomized controlled trial: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3155410/
- Becker & Midoun, 2016 systematic review: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27631149/