Why Are Magazines in Doctors’ Waiting Rooms So Dull? - East Idaho News

Why Are Magazines in Doctors’ Waiting Rooms So Dull?

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getty 121214 waitingroommaps?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1418384115817Fuse/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Your doctor can answer all your health questions, but can he answer this question: Why are the magazines in the doctor’s waiting room usually dated and dull?

Researchers in New Zealand decided to find an answer.  They placed 87 magazines — both new and old — as bait in the waiting room of a primary care practice of over 5,000 patients.

After 31 days, 41 magazines had disappeared, and 60 percent of those missing mags were newer issues, less than two months old.

The researchers also discovered that 98 percent of so-called “gossipy”-type magazines — the ones that feature five or more photos of celebrities on the cover — went missing, versus just one of the “non-gossipy,” more educational magazine offerings.

The researcher calculated that magazines disappear from doctors’ offices at a rate of 1.32 per day.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal’s Christmas issue, which tends to be tongue-in-cheek with reports of scientific scrutiny being applied to less-than-serious subjects.


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