Networked for change? identifying obstetric opinion leaders and assessing their opinions on caesarean delivery

The objective was to determine whether obstetric opinion leaders can be identified and to characterize them in terms of their demographic and professional characteristics and their attitudes toward caesarean delivery. In late 1998, we surveyed 527 obstetricians, 138 family physicians, and 80 certifi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science & medicine (1982) 2003-12, Vol.57 (12), p.2423-2434
Main Authors: Kravitz, Richard L, Krackhardt, David, Melnikow, Joy, Franz, Carol E, Gilbert, William M, Zach, Andra, Paterniti, Debora A, Romano, Patrick S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attitude of Health Personnel
Biological and medical sciences
Birth
Caesarean section
California
Cesarean section
Cesarean Section - statistics & numerical data
Decision Making
Delivery. Postpartum. Lactation
Doctors
Female
Gynecology. Andrology. Obstetrics
Health
Humans
Leadership
Male
Medical sciences
Medicine
Middle Aged
Nurse Midwives
Obstetrical techniques
Obstetricians
Obstetrics
Obstetrics - statistics & numerical data
Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Hospital
Opinion
Opinion leaders
Opinions
Pregnancy
Professional Practice - statistics & numerical data
Social sciences
Sociology, Medical
Sociometric Techniques
State Health Planning and Development Agencies
United States
USA
USA Caesarean section Obstetricians Opinion leaders
Workforce
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The objective was to determine whether obstetric opinion leaders can be identified and to characterize them in terms of their demographic and professional characteristics and their attitudes toward caesarean delivery. In late 1998, we surveyed 527 obstetricians, 138 family physicians, and 80 certified nurse midwives (overall response rate, 57.8%) practicing in a stratified random sample of California hospitals with at least 1000 annual deliveries ( n=52). Participants reported on demographic and professional characteristics and attitudes towards caesarean delivery; they also checked off those hospital colleagues from whom they had sought or would seek advice on labour and delivery. A composite measure of nomination frequency was used to characterize each respondent's degree of “opinion leadership”. All analyses were corrected for the complex survey design. Using a nomination cutoff of 0.4 (0–1 scale), opinion leaders were identified in 31% of California hospitals; they were identified in 81% of hospitals using a cutoff of 0.2. Compared with their peers in the lowest fifth of the nomination distribution, clinicians in the top fifth were younger and more likely to be male, to speak English as a first language, to practice obstetrics, to have a maternal–foetal medicine subspecialty, and to practice in higher volume hospitals ( p
ISSN:0277-9536
1873-5347
DOI:10.1016/S0277-9536(03)00137-0