Chakroun R, Milhabet I
Université Nice Sophia-Antipolis, institut d'administration des entreprises, Nice cedex, France.
Rev Epidemiol Sante Publique. 2011 Aug;59(4):233-42. doi: 10.1016/j.respe.2010.12.011. Epub 2011 Jul 14.
Key medical opinion leaders influence the behaviors of physicians and patients. By law, they have to disclose their interests with pharmaceutical companies when they communicate in the media. Up to now, it appears that no study has explored the effect of opinion leaders' disclosures despite their potential impact on public health and economy. The study objective was to assess the effects of opinion leaders' disclosures of interest on the public and general practitioners' trust in opinion leader by comparison with the overall medical community.
In an experimental setting, three opinion leader profiles were built that differed only by the disclosure of their interests (hidden vs. weak vs. strong interests). One of the three profiles was randomly assigned to the subjects of two groups: 67 students and 60 general practitioners. According to an Anova analysis, the main effects and interactions of the disclosure of interests, of the message recipients, and of the assessed targets on the level of trust were measured.
The results show that the average level of trust expressed by general practitioners was lower than that expressed by the general public. The level of trust in the opinion leader was lower than that of the overall medical community. The level of trust of exposed subjects fell much lower with stronger disclosed interests. While the general public did not distinguish trust between opinion leaders and the overall medical community, practitioners showed a significantly lower level of trust in opinion leaders with increasingly strong levels of disclosed interests.
These study results refute the assertion that public trust would be reduced by the disclosure of interests. They reinforce the importance of the "who judges who" and "which kind of disclosure impacts who ?" effects and draw attention to further research on the role of social interactions in both mass and group communications.
关键医学意见领袖会影响医生和患者的行为。根据法律规定，他们在媒体发声时必须披露与制药公司的利益关系。到目前为止，尽管意见领袖的利益披露可能对公众健康和经济产生影响，但似乎尚无研究探讨其效果。本研究的目的是通过与整个医学界进行比较，评估意见领袖的利益披露对公众和全科医生对意见领袖信任度的影响。
在一个实验环境中，构建了三种仅在利益披露方面存在差异的意见领袖形象（隐藏利益、微弱利益、强烈利益）。三种形象之一被随机分配给两组受试者：67名学生和60名全科医生。根据方差分析，测量利益披露、信息接收者以及评估对象对信任水平的主效应和交互作用。
结果显示，全科医生表达的平均信任水平低于普通公众。对意见领袖的信任水平低于整个医学界。随着披露的利益关系增强，被曝光受试者的信任水平下降得更多。虽然普通公众没有区分意见领袖和整个医学界之间的信任，但从业者对披露利益关系越来越强的意见领袖表现出显著更低的信任水平。
这些研究结果驳斥了利益披露会降低公众信任的说法。它们强化了“谁评判谁”以及“哪种披露会影响谁”效应的重要性，并提请注意对大众传播和群体传播中社会互动作用的进一步研究。
