The impact of journal advertisements on prescribers of cholinesterase inhibitors

✍ Scribed by Justin Sauer; Robert Howard

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 126 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6230
• DOI: 10.1002/gps.727

✦ Synopsis

The cholinesterase inhibitors became available for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the United Kingdom in 1997. Donepezil was the first drug to receive a license, followed by rivastigmine and galantamine (Grundman and Thal, 2000). The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (2001) has recommended that these drugs be made available to patients with mild and moderate Alzheimer's dementia and that treatment should be initiated and supervised by specialists. The pharmaceutical manufacturers have taken out full-page colour advertisements in medical journals, which have employed dramatic and sometimes shocking portrayals of patients with AD and their carers. We wished to examine the effects these adverts had on practicing old age psychiatrists.