It was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and I was catching up on my favorite TV reruns. After an hour, I noticed a pattern-every other TV commercial was pitching a pill or remedy for health conditions from annoying, but normative, to debilitating and serious. I began to list the types of TV commercials that encouraged the purchase of a health-related product or that urged requesting a prescription from one's provider. To my amazement, I had viewed 14 health-related commercials in a period of 2 hours-products to deal with pain, impaired sleep, sinus congestion, cough, constipation and diarrhea, and skin conditions such as acne, shingles, and psoriasis. Among the 14 commercials were what I consider to be "heavy-duty" drugs, addressing serious chronic conditions such as blood thinners for plaque, inhalers for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and a drug for bipolar depression. And then there were the ever-present pitches to reestablish one's romantic relationships by taking pills for erectile dysfunction; however, the recitation of side effects dampened the romance considerably. There were also commercials for preventive vaccines, as well as for a cooking oil claiming to lower cholesterol.
Given that both American adults and children spend, on average, 5 hours per day watching television, one can only speculate on the effects of the pervasive messaging that there is a quick fix for everything.1 Could this state of affairs be one of the drivers in the current US opioid epidemic? The American Society of Addiction Medicine reports "drug overdose as the leading cause of accidental death in the US, with 47,055 lethal drug overdoses in 2014."2 Two-thirds of these deaths were the direct result of prescription pain relief overdoses, and the rate of deaths from prescription overdoses has quadrupled since 1999.
Constant media messaging, the insistence of patients for immediate relief, and the tendency of some providers to prescribe quickly instead of taking the time to find alternate approaches to patient problems are a "prescription" for disaster-the opioid epidemic is only one example. Holistic caregivers take the time to listen, carefully assess and recommend interventions that could alleviate pain and suffering through a blend of self-management, holistic modalities, and listening to the voice inside instead of the quick-fix TV messages.
Conduct your own experiment-keep a list of the number and type of health-related TV commercials and judge for yourself the impact of these messages on yourself and on those for whom you care.
-Gloria F. Donnelly, PhD, RN, FAAN, FCPP
Editor in Chief
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