New research reported in Implementation Science shows that acceptance of evidence by experienced professionals is more likely if the evidence is clearly visible. In the abstract to their new article Factors influencing the adoption of an innovation, the authors conclude that "The results of this study suggest that future information innovations must demonstrate an advantage over current resources and the research evidence supporting the innovation must be clearly visible. Findings also suggest that the innovation adoption process has a social element, and collegial interactions and discussions may facilitate that process." [pdf of entire article here]
The authors looked through the lens of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation Theory, which attempts to explain how new ideas or innovations are adopted. Rogers theorizes that five attributes affect adoption: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. This particular research pertains to the adoption of a medical innovation -- though I like to think the conclusions are more generally applicable: People must be able to see evidence demonstrating why something is advantageous, and evidence must be presented clearly enough that they can get past the complexity, and observe the significance first-hand.
Researchers looked at how a group of physicians adopted the Healthy Heart Kit (HHK), a risk management and patient education resource. The kit was developed by Health Canada to ensure physicians have the latest knowledge for the prevention of CVD and promotion of cardiovascular health.
Evidence is not enough. The authors found that "In this study, observability of the benefits of the HHK was another attribute found to be associated with physicians’ intention to use it. Although this result is somewhat expected in the area of evidence-based practice, this finding may not be generalizable to other areas of health care practice. Dopson, FitzGerald, Ferlie, Gabbay and Locock state in their meta-synthesis work that there is still a weak relationship between the strength of the evidence base and clinical behaviour change, and there was no discernible pattern that innovations, supported by stronger evidence were diffusing faster." That's unfortunate. I'll go out on a limb and say that the presentation -- and the presenter -- also have a lot to do with the adoption rate. Word to the wise: The authors conclude that "These results could be valuable for knowledge translation researchers and health promotion developers in future innovation adoption planning."
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