62% of consumers not interested in hearing from pharma on social media

There’s a lot of good information in the Rodale DTD Study and it validates the research that I have been doing for a client for a better part of the year.

To me the biggest validation was that people want to hear from other people like them via social media and do not want to hear from pharma or insurers.  You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why;

• Trust in the pharma industry, and the FDA, is still at an all time low.

• “Who would be speaking to” was a common concern among people who use social media for health when asked if they would follow pharma brand via social media.

• Finally, there is the issue of privacy.  When you join groups on social media it is, in most cases, there for the whole world to see.

According to the Epsilon Study:

Pharma can have a limited voice – to validate what people say

“The study showed that consumers are not resistant to Pharma actively participating in social media to some degree.” “When consumers read a post about a medication concern 45% would like someone to validate the accuracy of that comment.”

Of course the problem is that they usually can’t validate the concern on a branded website unless they try and read through the label and warnings.  Even then they may not be able to find the information they were looking for because all too often label language is too damn hard to understand.

While the FDA decides on the how much interaction consumers can have with drug companies patients are using alternate sources for information with sites like patients like me and Rate a drug.   The FDA needs to determine the extent that content on these sites is both accurate and credible and how patients are using these type of sites in healthcare decision making.  One could argue that these sites can do some good in educating patients but there is also the possibility that, after reading some content, that people could stop taking their medication or not fulfill their Rx.

Are sites like these providing credible information and what effect are they having on patients behavior ?

The FDA needs to better understand HOW consumers & patients are using the Internet for healthcare.  With consumers trusting each other a lot more than drug company websites these types of sites could become more impactful in helping or hurting patient behavior.