Content Analysis of the Videos Featuring Prescription Drug Advertisements in Social Media: YouTube

The purpose of this study was to evaluate from a consumer's perspective the content of digital video advertisements posted on the website YouTube.com. Advertisements for the top-selling 25 prescription drugs were identified during a 1-month time period (September 2009) and were categorized as either regulated or unregulated by the FDA. Unregulated advertisements were further classified as educational (by health care professionals), commercial (to sell drugs or for lawsuit claims), or miscellaneous. Drug name, advertisement type, number of views, and rating by viewers were collected. The current sample consists of 11.4% FDA-regulated and 88.6% FDA-unregulated (15.4% educational, 5.8% commercial, and 88.8% miscellaneous) advertisements. FDA-unregulated advertisement videos had a higher number of average views (6318 +/- 10,325) compared with FDA-regulated videos (6044 +/- 10,991). As consumers are exposed to a large number of FDA-unregulated advertisements for prescription drugs on YouTube, education is needed to enable consumers to distinguish between FDA-regulated and FDA-unregulated videos.