Direct-to-consumer marketing of psychological treatments for anxiety disorders
Section snippets
Barriers to the implementation of evidence-based psychological treatments
Several barriers currently hinder the widespread role of EBPTs in the treatment of anxiety disorders. We first turn our attention to practitioner underutilization of EBPTs, and then consider how lack of consumer EBPT knowledge and perceived stigma (which typically are not emphasized in dissemination and implementation efforts) present further obstacles to EBPT participation.
Direct-to-consumer marketing in the pharmaceutical industry
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing has a long and successful history in the United States’ pharmaceutical industry, with the first advertisement for medication published in a newspaper in the early eighteenth century (Bhanji et al., 2008). Today, DTC marketing of pharmaceutical products is legal only in the United States and New Zealand, where it is practiced across drug classes, with drugs for mental disorders comprising three of the top five categories of most frequently prescribed drugs in
Considering direct-to-consumer marketing to promote evidence-based psychological treatment participation among individuals with anxiety disorders
Amidst this ongoing debate, analyses show that the greatest potential benefit of DTC marketing is an increased administration of treatments that are: (1) safe, (2) proven effective, and (3) underutilized for serious conditions (Almasi, Stafford, Kravitz, & Mansfield, 2006). Relative to many of the pharmacotherapy regimens currently advancing, which can in several circumstances come with risk of unfavorable side effects, EBPTs for anxiety disorders certainly meet these three criteria. Given the
Current efforts in direct-to-consumer marketing of EBPTs for anxiety disorders
To date, DTC marketing has not been widely adopted as a broad mechanism to increase awareness and use of EBPTs for anxiety disorders. However, several key organizations, including the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), the International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Foundation (IOCDF), the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), and a host of anxiety disorder specialty clinics in academic centers, have worked in their capacities for several years to
Conclusions and future directions
Psychological treatment is assuming a less prominent role in mental health care, while the use of pharmaceutical treatments to treat mental disorders is rising (Olfson & Marcus, 2010). We are at a crucial time in which a great number of effective treatments for anxiety disorders exist but affected individuals are increasingly receiving unsupported treatment regimens. The central task of effective dissemination and implementation of efficacious anxiety disorder treatments is undoubtedly
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