Department of Emergency Medicine, Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, Reggio Emilia, Italy.
PLoS One. 2010 Mar 24;5(3):e9829. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009829.
Although being an important source of science news information to the public, print news media have often been criticized in their credibility. Health-related content of press media articles has been examined by many studies underlining that information about benefits, risks and costs are often incomplete or inadequate and financial conflicts of interest are rarely reported. However, these studies have focused their analysis on very selected science articles. The present research aimed at adopting a wider explorative approach, by analysing all types of health science information appearing on the Italian national press in one-week period. Moreover, we attempted to score the balance of the articles.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We collected 146 health science communication articles defined as articles aiming at improving the reader's knowledge on health from a scientific perspective. Articles were evaluated by 3 independent physicians with respect to different divulgation parameters: benefits, costs, risks, sources of information, disclosure of financial conflicts of interest and balance. Balance was evaluated with regard to exaggerated or non correct claims. The selected articles appeared on 41 Italian national daily newspapers and 41 weekly magazines, representing 89% of national circulation copies: 97 articles (66%) covered common medical treatments or basic scientific research and 49 (34%) were about new medical treatments, procedures, tests or products. We found that only 6/49 (12%) articles on new treatments, procedures, tests or products mentioned costs or risks to patients. Moreover, benefits were always maximized and in 16/49 cases (33%) they were presented in relative rather than absolute terms. The majority of stories (133/146, 91%) did not report any financial conflict of interest. Among these, 15 were shown to underreport them (15/146, 9.5%), as we demonstrated that conflicts of interest did actually exist. Unbalanced articles were 27/146 (18%). Specifically, the probability of unbalanced reporting was significantly increased in stories about a new treatment, procedure, test or product (22/49, 45%), compared to stories covering common treatments or basic scientific research (5/97, 5%) (risk ratio, 8.72).
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Consistent with prior research on health science communication in other countries, we report undisclosed costs and risks, emphasized benefits, unrevealed financial conflicts of interest and exaggerated claims in Italian print media. In addition, we show that the risk for a story about a new medical approach to be unbalanced is almost 9 times higher with respect to stories about any other kind of health science-related topics. These findings raise again the fundamental issue whether popular media is detrimental rather than useful to public health.
尽管印刷新闻媒体是公众获取科学新闻信息的重要来源，但它们的可信度经常受到批评。许多研究已经检验了新闻媒体文章中的与健康相关的内容，强调了关于益处、风险和成本的信息往往不完整或不充分，而且很少报道财务利益冲突。然而，这些研究只关注了非常特定的科学文章。本研究旨在采用更广泛的探索性方法，分析一周内意大利全国新闻媒体上出现的所有类型的健康科学信息。此外，我们试图对文章进行评分，以评估其平衡程度。
方法/主要发现：我们收集了 146 篇健康科学传播文章，这些文章旨在从科学角度提高读者对健康的认识。由 3 名独立医生根据不同的传播参数对文章进行评估：益处、成本、风险、信息来源、财务利益冲突的披露以及平衡。平衡是根据夸大或不正确的说法进行评估的。所选文章出现在 41 家意大利全国日报和 41 家周刊上，占全国发行量的 89%：97 篇文章（66%）涵盖常见的医疗方法或基础科学研究，49 篇（34%）涉及新的医疗方法、程序、测试或产品。我们发现，只有 49 篇（12%）关于新的治疗方法、程序、测试或产品的文章提到了对患者的成本或风险。此外，益处总是被最大化，在 16 篇（33%）的文章中，它们是以相对而不是绝对的术语呈现的。大多数报道（133/146，91%）没有报告任何财务利益冲突。在这些报道中，有 15 篇（15/146，9.5%）被证明有利益冲突但没有报道，因为我们证明实际上存在利益冲突。146 篇文章中有 27 篇（18%）是不平衡的报道。具体来说，与涵盖常见治疗方法或基础科学研究的文章（5/97，5%）相比，关于新治疗方法、程序、测试或产品的文章（22/49，45%）出现不平衡报道的概率显著增加（风险比，8.72）。
结论/意义：与其他国家的健康科学传播研究一致，我们报告了意大利印刷媒体中未披露的成本和风险、强调了益处、未披露的财务利益冲突以及夸大的说法。此外，我们表明，关于新的医疗方法的报道出现不平衡的风险几乎是关于任何其他类型的健康科学相关主题的报道的 9 倍。这些发现再次提出了一个基本问题，即大众媒体是否对公众健康有害而不是有益。
