Ask Your Doctor About Exposure Therapy!: Direct-To-Consumer Marketing Of Empirically Supported Psychological Treatments For Anxiety

Despite efforts to disseminate Evidence-Based Psychological Interventions (EBPIS) to mental health practitioners, most individuals with psychological disorders do not receive any form of treatment, and many others who do seek treatment do not receive EBPIS. The success of the pharmaceutical industry in effectively marketing prescription drugs directly to consumers is considered as a model for advancing dissemination of EBPIS. Utilizing undergraduate students as participants, the current study examined how potential consumers of mental health services respond to internet-based marketing information about EBPIS. Participants vieinformation about anxiety disorders and a specific type of treatment (i.e., cognitive-behavioral therapy) in both text and video formats, with appeal type and tone as the independent variables. Dependent measures assessed consumer attitude and evaluation, intent to try or recommend, and recall. Multiple analyses of variance (anovas) on these measures indicated that no one type of approach to advertising is universally preferred, but respondents tended to respond more favorably in terms of positive affect to emotional- and directive-based advertisements, and they were more likely to report an intent to try cbt with text-based advertisements when compared to corresponding video-based information. The results of the current study provide an important foundation for future research in direct-to-consumer marketing of psychological treatments.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D. in Psychology

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2017

Author dc:creator

• Fulwiler, Joshua C.

Contributors dc:contributor

• John Young
• Heather Allen
• Mervin Matthew

• Clinical Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1134

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-2133