Introduction:

The advertising of drugs and dietary supplements on television has a direct impact on the consumption patterns and the public health of the population, thus establishing the need to quantify the frequency of advertising of drugs and dietary supplements and additionally assess the content of the advertising regarding the current regulations of Invima, WHO and SIC.

Methodology:

During the week of June 27 to July 3, 2016 on a national television channel there were recorded all advertising related to drugs and dietary supplements broadcasted during the family strip from 7:00-21:30. 37 drug advertisements and 4 dietary supplement advertisements were analyzed, and frequency and total duration time were quantified. In addition, a checklist type matrix was used to evaluate compliance with the requirements of the Invima and WHO ethical criteria (only for drug commercials), to subsequently determine the percentage of compliance and non-compliance of each requirement.

Results:

It was obtained that during the study week the average duration of advertising space during the transmission of the family band was 237.4 minutes, equivalent to approximately 4 hours; and that the proportion of these advertising spaces spread in advertisements of drugs and dietary supplements, corresponded on average to 9.8% to advertisements for drugs and 0.8% to advertisements for dietary supplements. Non-compliance was identified with both the Invima requirements and the WHO ethical criteria, and finally five advertisements of drugs that were under supervision of the SIC by misleading advertising.

Conclusions:

It was possible to quantify the length of time spent in drug commercials and dietary supplements in relation to the total time of emission of the family band, evidencing a greater proportion in the advertisement of drugs than of dietary supplements.