Steady as it goes for the PMB readership of Canadian medical publications

Readership of the leading Canadian medical publications has remained steady, according to the 2011 Medical Media Study (MMS) released by the Print Measurement Bureau (PMB). The study was last done in 2009 and since then has been augmented with questions about online readership for 21 medical titles, including The Medical Post (Rogers), Canadian Medical Association Journal and Canadian Family Physician. 

According to a story in Marketing magazine, average readership of the top 5 English and top 3 French medical titles have remained relatively unchanged since 2009 at 16,341 and 5,876 respectively.

The MMS is based on interviews with 1,500 GPs and physicians in six specialties selected at random.

While the number of physicians using a print publication declined from 98% in 2009 to 97% this year, the MMS found that use of media publications’ websites increased from 43% in 2009 to 48% this year.

More than half of all survey respondents (58%) agreed that medical publications are a valuable source for information on prescription products – second only to medical meetings (62%) – while 70% agreed that they are a valuable source of information for patient treatment (again trailing medical meetings at 73%).