Changing Physicians' Behavior

Abstract

Medical research has traditionally been driven by a search for the truth, whether it relates to the fundamental biologic basis of health and disease or to the use of such knowledge to improve diagnosis and therapy. There has been an implicit expectation that new information will be disseminated. If the new information is spread effectively, physicians and patients should be better educated, change their attitudes and beliefs appropriately, and alter their behavior.In some situations, this pathway leading from the dissemination of new information to a change in behavior has worked with remarkable dispatch. For example, in 1973 the Journal . . .