Study: Hospital ads play on emotions

Advertising by some of the nation's top academic medical centers frequently targeted patients by playing on their emotions and promoting unproven or cosmetic procedures, a study concluded.

The report, which appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine on March 28, examined advertisements at the 17 academic medical centers that were named to the U.S. News & World Report 2002 honor roll of the nation's best hospitals.

It looked at 127 nonresearch-related print ads and found that 122 of the ads were aimed at attracting patients. Of those, nearly 62% used emotional appeal as a strategy to attract patients.

The study also found that 21 of the ads touted single interventions, with 38.1% promoting unproven procedures and 28.6% for cosmetic procedures. More than half of these ads presented benefits, but only one outlined potential harms. An example cited in the study featured the image of a middle-aged woman with words exclaiming, "We do botox!"

Robin Larson, MD, MPH, lead author of the study, said she wasn't surprised to find that academic medical centers were engaging in advertising, but she was shocked by what types of advertisements were being used. Dr. Larson is a clinician researcher at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt., and an instructor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School.

Rick Wade, spokesman for the American Hospital Assn., said that all advertising evokes some sort of emotional reaction. But hospitals should be particularly careful with how they advertise because of "the special place they hold in the community."

He added that hospital advertising can be an important resource for the public when it is used for health promotion and illness prevention.

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/04/25/bibf0425.htm.