Psychology and DTC Communications

The psychological functioning of patients varies according to how sick they perceive themselves to be, and whether that sickness is debilitating or life threatening. The sicker a patient perceives themselves to be, the more their behavior in the context of their disease, such as their part in making treatment decisions, departs from their core psychology and life context behavior. Some ways in which people with debilitating diseases can become distorted include:

• Becoming more introverted
• Losing touch with their emotions and developing a resistant "shell"
• Coming to regard a high level of symptom burden as "normal" or even "remission"
• Abdicating responsibility for treatment to decisions to caregivers and physicians

All this means that DTC campaigns have to be carefully tuned to the range of psychological functioning to be found in a particular disease state and that concepts and imagery will be optimum when they reflect the mental processes and emotional needs of the target group.
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