Background: To date, there has been little research with digital direct-to-consumer (DTC) communication regarding pharmaceutical products (eg, product websites), so this study was designed to measure perception and recall of Important Safety Information (ISI) in websites viewed on desktops and smartphone devices.
Methods: A quantitative survey was conducted with 1600 self-identified asthma patients. Participants viewed 1 of 4 mocked-up websites for a fictitious asthma product in either a desktop or smartphone format that varied in the way in which risk information was presented and accessed. The "websites" were embedded in survey software that enabled behavior to be tracked and facilitated presentation of questions designed to assess memory and user experience.
Results: Statistically significant differences in likelihood of interacting with, and memory of, the ISI were observed across the 4 different presentation formats-2 typical of existing website formats and 2 representing alternative formats-for both desktop and smartphone media. The traditional formats consistently outperformed the alternative formats overall, but when analyses are restricted to the subset of participants who view ISI, elements of one of the alternative formats proved to be superior.
Conclusions: Digital presentation of different formats of risk information has a significant effect on recall and recognition of ISI associated with pharmaceutical products, and the interactive nature of digital material adds a layer of complexity to assessing the performance of the various formats.
Keywords: digital media; direct-to-consumer advertising; regulatory policy.