I read the article on Effects of media coverage of Women's Health, Initiative study on attitudes and behavior of women receiving hormone replacement therapy and found some pretty interesting things. So, here are the facts within the article. Half of the women use reading material as a source of information helping them decide whether to use HRT but 82 % use their physician. Pharmacists were not reported as a source. These things are amazing. To conduct this they had to go through a certain selection process and contact method. They had to answer questions about their current menopausal status, HRT use, sources of information regarding HRT, level of trust in their physicians and level of trust in the accuracy of information about HRT. When this thing first started there were 233 women but when it actually came down to the analyzing there were only 97. Only 71% were currently using HRT. The most common reason used HRT for the relief of symptoms related to menopause. The major source when deciding to use HRT was from their physician. The other sources were from the media (newspapers, books, broadcast). There is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation that is about HRT in the media as well sometimes with physicians. Bottom line is what the very last paragraph says: Miscommunication of the new research results has the potential to negatively affect the health of patients. The solution to this problem will come from multiple sources, but pharmacists have the opportunity to take an active role.
I think there is not enough information out there that is true. Maybe we need more studies and research out there before we inform these women of HRT. Maybe the media needs not to advertise so negatively and more positively. Perform the studies and researches and not release the information until we are sure these are facts, that way there could be more positive than negative information.
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3 comments:
I agree with you. It is amazing how media can twist information around to make it sound the way they want to. It can be very difficult to read the statistics about important stuff like this so we depend on the media to put it into a perspective we understand. Then it doesn't always make it clearer or right. From the information you got I believe there needs to be some more trials done with more participants in order to get some more accurate numbers.
Christina,
I agree that there is a lot of miscommunication about HRT. I am glad that the majority of women look toward their physician for advice instead of relaying solely on the media. The media is not the best place to receive this type of information. I was also amazed that pharmacists were not a source when women need more information about HRT. I believe that there should be more research over HRT.
I read your blog and the info in the book and agree that there should be more clinical trials and large numbers of women in the studies. It is really unfortunate that each study comes out with conflicting information. Truely makes it hard to have an informed decision.
Between heart disease issues, stroke and bone loss etc we can't underestimate how important more and continued research is to each of us.
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