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Background: It is often assumed that merely providing information in an accessible form will influence practice. Although such a strategy is still widely used in an attempt to change behaviour, there is a growing awareness that simply providing information may not lead to appropriate changes in the practice of health care professionals.

Objectives: To assess the effects of printed educational materials in improving the behaviour of health care professionals and patient outcomes.

Search strategy: We searched the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group specialised register, reference lists of articles, and contacted content area experts.

Selection criteria: Randomised trials, interrupted time series analyses and non equivalent group designs with pre-post measures of interventions comparing 1. Printed educational materials versus a non-intervention control; and 2. Printed educational materials plus additional implementation strategies versus printed educational materials alone. The participants were any health care professionals provided with printed educational materials aimed at improving their practice and/or patient outcomes.

Data collection and analysis: Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed study quality.

Main results: Eleven studies were included involving more than 1848 physicians. It proved impractical to examine the impact of interventions quantitatively because of poor reporting of results and inappropriate primary analyses. Nine studies examined comparison 1. Estimates of the benefit from printed educational materials ranged from-3% to 243.4% for provider outcomes, and from-16.1% to 175.6% for …