• Emma Whelan, Mark Asbridge, and Susan Haydt.
• Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University, 6135 University Avenue, Marion McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4P9. emma.whelan@dal.ca
• Pain Res Manag. 2011 Jul 1; 16 (4): 252258252-8.

BackgroundThere are public concerns regarding OxyContin (Purdue Pharma, Canada) and charges within the pain medicine community that media coverage of the drug has been biased.ObjectiveTo analyze and compare representations of OxyContin in medical journals and North American newspapers in an attempt to shed light on how each contributes to the 'social problem' associated with OxyContin.MethodsUsing searches of newspaper and medical literature databases, two samples were drawn: 924 stories published between 1995 and 2005 in 27 North American newspapers, and 197 articles published between 1995 and 2007 in 33 medical journals in the fields of addiction/substance abuse, pain/anesthesiology and general/internal medicine. The foci, themes, perspectives represented and evaluations of OxyContin presented in these texts were analyzed statistically.ResultsNewspaper coverage of OxyContin emphasized negative evaluations of the drug, focusing on abuse, addiction, crime and death rather than the use of OxyContin for the legitimate treatment of pain. Newspaper stories most often conveyed the perspectives of law enforcement and courts, and much less often represented the perspectives of physicians. However, analysis of physician perspectives represented in newspaper stories and in medical journals revealed a high degree of inconsistency, especially across the fields of pain medicine and addiction medicine.ConclusionThe prevalence of negative representations of OxyContin is often blamed on biased media coverage and an ignorant public. However, the proliferation of inconsistent messages regarding the drug from physicians plays a role in the drug's persistent status as a social problem.

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