Attitudes professionnelles et diffusion de la connaissance scientifique : les conférences de consensus sont-elles susceptibles de modifier les comportements des praticiens ?

Caroline Weill: Professional attitudes and diffusion of scientific knowledge: are the consensus conférences able to change physicians' behaviors? The effectiveness of the Consensus Development Program of the National Institute of Health has been recently assessed. The assessment has focused on the means of dissemination of the program, in order to investigate its effects on physician behavior. Results showed that the conferences mostly failed to stimulate changes in physician practice, despite moderate success in reaching the appropriate target audience. In this article, we discuss the policy implications of those results, at a moment when, in France particularly, the medical community's concern tends to focus on organizing Consensus Development Conferences : would it make sense to improve the dissemination process of the conferences, in order to improve their effectiveness in encouraging changes in medical practice ? We find it necessary to emphasize the factors that determine changes in medical practice, so that they could be taken in account for the definition of successful information transfer programs and appropriate follow-ups.