About 28% of patients surveyed say that they have talked to a physician about a prescription drug they saw advertised, and 44% of those patients report that they were given the drug they asked about, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll conducted Oct. 14-20.
About 54% say that their physicians recommended behavior or lifestyle changes after being asked about a drug the patient had seen advertised, while 49% of patients say that the physician recommended a different prescription drug and 39% say that the physician recommended an over-the-counter drug, Kaiser reported.
The results were similar to a Health Tracking Poll conducted in March of 2008, when 32% of patients had talked with their physicians about a drug they had seen advertised. Of those patients, 57% had physicians who recommended lifestyle or behavior changes, 54% recommended a different prescription drug, 44% recommended the drug the patient asked about, and 30% recommended an OTC drug.
The 2015 poll was conducted by phone among a nationally representative sample of 1,203 adults living in the United States.