KnowledgeLink Newsletter
Larry Liberti
Thomson Scientific
October 2005
To learn new ways to improve the value of publication planning and medical
writing, Astrolabe Analytica, Inc. and the University of Alabama School of Medicine
at Birmingham, USA performed a study of the reading habits of physicians. This
large study confirmed that clinicians continue to rely on the scientific literature
to learn about new drugs, advances in therapies, and new uses for old products.
The study also showed what clinicians value most as they read an article.
Introduction
Knowing more about how clinicians interpret medical literature can help improve
scientific communication efforts. The study “Physician Appraisal of the
Published Literature: Assessment of Clinical Relevance and Identification of
Key Messages”1 was presented at the 64th Annual Conference
of the American Medical Writers Association in St. Louis, Missouri, October
2004, and at the Annual Conference for the Alliance of Continuing Medical Education
in San Francisco, California January 2005.
Factors influencing interpretation of medical literature by practicing physicians
were found to be (in rank order):
- Quality of information presented
- How well key concepts are supported by data
- Quality of the journal
- Format of presentation
- Reputation of sponsor
- Reputation of investigators
- Commercial sponsorship
Evaluating knowledge: The Thomson Message Mapping System
The Thomson Message Mapping SystemSM (TMMS) evaluates
knowledge in publicly available resources, from the point of view of the prescribing
clinician. The system identifies, categories and quantitatively scores key ideas
and messages published about a product in journal articles, abstracts, monographs,
posters, and more, from the point of view of the practicing clinician. The results
can then be used to assess the impact these messages will have on the attitudes
and treatment habits of clinicians.
The questions answered by this study included:
1. Does the Thomson Message Mapping System reflect a doctor’s
perception of the credibility of information in the medical literature?
Yes. Doctors ranked the articles similarly to the TMMS; they identified
a statistically significant difference between two test articles based on their
ranking of :
- how the article would influence their approach to therapy, and
- how the article would influence their clinical practice
2. How does the TMMS scoring of messages reflect a doctor’s
own approach to assessing information in medical articles?
Among the seven factors rated by the participants, the top four were congruent
with the four factors used by the TMMS to rate messages:
- Quality of Information Presented (Source score)
- How Well Key Concepts are Supported by Data (Message score)
- Quality of the Journal (Journal Citation Reports® Impact Factor)
- Format of Presentation (TMMS ranking of format)
3. How do I know that the TMMS identifies the same messages as
a physician?
The study found that the top messages identified by the readers were 100%
consistent with the top three messages identified independently by the Astrolabe
analysts using the TMMS message identification algorithm.
4. Will a strong message change behavior?
Yes. The article that was rated with the higher Source Score was also the
article with the highest scores regarding impact on approach to therapy and
influence on clinical practice. Therefore, a message from a strong article will
have a greater impact that one from a weak article and supported poorly by the
data.
5. Do clinicians use published literature to learn about therapies?
Yes. In this sample of 299 doctors, most allocated up to 4 hours per week
to read scientific journals.
References
1. Physician Appraisal of the Published Literature: Assessment of Clinical
Relevance and Identification of Key Messages Casebeer L, Liberti L, Zheng S,
Conaway S, Shillman R: http://tinyurl.com/artpr
2. Poster presentation from the 64th Annual Conference of the American Medical
Writers Association: http://tinyurl.com/9hzqg
Learn more about the Thomson Message Mapping System at http://scientific.thomson.com/tmms
