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When Does Information Change Practitioners' Behavior?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

David E. Kanouse  and
Itzhak Jacoby
David E. Kanouse
Affiliation:
The RAND Corporation
Itzhak Jacoby
Affiliation:
National Institutes of Health
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Abstract

Programs that disseminate information to health care practitioners often do so partly to encourage appropriate changes in practice. However, merely providing information is seldom enough to accomplish such changes. If information transfer programs are to influence practice, they must be designed to maximize the conditions facilitating change. Reliance on a diffusion model for thinking about how information reaches practitioners has led researchers to over-emphasize the importance of exposure to information and ignore other factors that determine whether change will occur, such as practitioners' motivation to change, the context in which clinical decisions are made, and how information is presented. The fact that successful dissemination will not necessarily produce change also has implications for how information transfer programs should be monitored and evaluated.

Type
Special Section: Technology Assessment and the Alteration of Medical Practices
Information
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 27 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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