Physician professional opinion leadership and physician advertising: a consumer view

The author reports a study of consumers' attitudes toward information provided by personal physicians versus information provided by physicians' advertising and introduces the concept fo professional opinion leadership. The results provide evidence that the credibility of physicians is related to several attitude measures and that there are important differences in how individuals rate that credibility. Evidence also suggests that advertising by doctors is perceived as less credible than personally communicated information; nonetheless, some of the other findings indicate positive consumer response to such advertising. Comparisons are made with information provided by scientists and chiropractors.