Gender Differences in Patients’ Assessment of Positive Outcomes of Online Direct-to-Consumer Promotion

Abstract

Gender difference in help-seeking behavior has been an important research discussion and, generally, it has been discovered that men seek less help than women do. This is also true for seeking healthcare information where men generally have been found to be more reluctant than women in seeking health advice. This paper explores the gender difference that patients harbor vis-a-vis positive outcomes of online direct-to-consumer promotion (DTCP) of pharmaceutical products. The hypothesis is that women find the facility provided through the arrival of internet more positively than their male counterparts. Opinion of patients were taken with the help of interview. On the basis of this exploratory study, variables were developed. With the help of a 5-point Likert scale, these variables were incorporated in an interview schedule in order to determine the quantitative belief of patients. Only patients taking recourse to allopathy were taken as sample respondents for this research. The study concludes that women are more positive regarding online health search than men. The implications of the result are that promoters of DTCP are also advised to pay due weightage to the differing needs of genders and orient their promotion campaigns accordingly.