Medical journal advertisements have been evaluated for pharmacoeconomic and quality of life (QoL) content, however no studies have compared advertisements from general health care (General) and managed care (MC) journals. OBJECTIVES: The specific objectives of this study were to: 1) determine the number of pharmacoeconomic and QoL messages encountered in General and MC journals; and 2) evaluate the frequency of advertisements with respect to the type and content of pharmacoeconomic or QoL messages. METHODS: The study was a review of all advertisements in six journals appearing from July 1999 - June 2001. Journals were divided into two categories: General and MC. Three independent reviewers evaluated the content of each advertisement, and designated advertisements as those containing QoL, implicit or explicit, and/or pharmacoeconomic messages. Advertisements were also evaluated based on their use of supporting evidence for these messages. Advertisements in General and MC journals were compared using descriptive and comparative chi-squared statistics. RESULTS: 4,036 advertisements were identified from all issues in three General and three MC journals with 194 unique advertisements evaluated for potential outcomes messages. General and MC journals had QoL messages included in 36.0% and 41.7% of advertisements (p<0.005) and pharmacoeconomic messages in 7.3% and 9.0% of advertisements (p=0.08), respectively. MC journals had more advertisements detailing pharmaceutical expenditure savings (p=0.01) and listing specific costs (p=0.001). Trends for increased implicit QoL (p=0.07) and QoL references (p=0.08) in advertisements were found in MC journals. CONCLUSIONS: Leading journals contain large numbers of QoL advertisements, with MC having significantly more than General journals. MC journals are also more specific as to the details of the cost data, however very few advertisements contain these messages. Increased detail in both QoL and pharmacoeconomic advertisements will help improve communication of this timely data.