Category Congruence of Display-Only Products Influences Attention and Purchase Decisions.

In e-commerce settings, shoppers can navigate to product-specific pages on which they are asked to make yes-or-no decisions about buying a particular item. Beyond that target, there are often other products displayed on the page, such as those suggested by the retailers' recommendation systems, that can influence consumers' buying behavior. We propose that display items that come from the same category as the target product (matched) may enhance target purchase by increasing the attractiveness of the presented opportunity. Contrasting this, mismatched display items may reduce purchase by raising awareness of opportunity costs. Eye-tracking was used to explore this framework by examining how different types of displays influenced visual attention. Although target purchase rates were higher for products with matched vs. mismatched displays, there was no difference in fixation time for the target images. However, participants attended to mismatched display items for more time than they did for matched ones consistent with the hypothesized processes. In addition, increases in display attractiveness increased target purchase, but only for matched items, in line with supporting the target category. Given the importance of relative attention and information in determining the impact of display items, we replicated the overall purchase effect across varying amounts of available display information in a second behavioral study. This demonstration of robustness supports the translational relevance of these findings for application in industry.

Nurse practitioner-led home care curriculum for third-year medical students.

Recent data have shown that medical students do not receive adequate exposure to the practice of home care. The number of homebound people is expected to increase, and health care services for these patients will need to expand. A one-week didactic and clinical curriculum was designed and implemented by four nurse practitioners in the Visiting Doctors Program, to provide home care exposure to medical students. The program stresses the medical, psychosocial and palliative aspects of patient care. The students evaluated both the nurse practitioners and the program favorably, using a five-point Likert scale. Role modeling and professionalism were noted to be of value to the students, and bear further study in the context of medical school curricula for home care.