IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v36y2016i8p1011-1019.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Influence of Safety, Efficacy, and Medical Condition Severity on Natural versus Synthetic Drug Preference

Author

Listed:
  • Brian P. Meier
  • Courtney M. Lappas

Abstract

Research indicates that there is a preference for natural v. synthetic products, but the influence of this preference on drug choice in the medical domain is largely unknown. We present 5 studies in which participants were asked to consider a hypothetical situation in which they had a medical issue requiring pharmacological therapy. Participants ( N = 1223) were asked to select a natural, plant-derived, or synthetic drug. In studies 1a and 1b, approximately 79% of participants selected the natural v. synthetic drug, even though the safety and efficacy of the drugs were identical. Furthermore, participants rated the natural drug as safer than the synthetic drug, and as that difference increased, the odds of choosing the natural over synthetic drug increased. In studies 2 and 3, approximately 20% of participants selected the natural drug even when they were informed that it was less safe (study 2) or less effective (study 3) than the synthetic drug. Finally, in study 4, approximately 65% of participants chose a natural over synthetic drug regardless of the severity of a specific medical condition (mild v. severe hypertension), and this choice was predicted by perceived safety and efficacy differences. Overall, these data indicate that there is a bias for natural over synthetic drugs. This bias could have implications for drug choice and usage.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian P. Meier & Courtney M. Lappas, 2016. "The Influence of Safety, Efficacy, and Medical Condition Severity on Natural versus Synthetic Drug Preference," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 36(8), pages 1011-1019, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:36:y:2016:i:8:p:1011-1019
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X15621877
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X15621877
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X15621877?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cao, Yu & Li, Heng, 2023. "Everything has a limit: How intellectual humility lowers the preference for naturalness as reflected in drug choice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).
    2. Li-Jun Ji & Courtney M. Lappas & Xin-qiang Wang & Brian P. Meier, 2023. "The Naturalness Bias Influences Drug and Vaccine Decisions across Cultures," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 43(2), pages 252-262, February.
    3. Shawna F. Bayerman & Meng Li & Adnan Syed & Laura D. Scherer, 2023. "Development of a Naturalness Preference Scale," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 43(7-8), pages 821-834, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:36:y:2016:i:8:p:1011-1019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.