Objectives: The present study aimed to determine whether health service advertisements are perceived differently depending on advertising conventional or complementary and alternative medicine clinics.
Methods: A total of 42 adults (male=21, female=21) recruited through advertisements in Seoul, South Korea participated in this study. A standardized health service advertisement was designed with three controlled visual components such as (1) medical treatment information, (2) medical practitioner, and (3) medical facilities and it was shown to subjects while their eye movements were tracked and they were asked to rate their preferences for the different advertisements and their separate components. A multiple regression analysis was performed to see the correlation of the preferences for each of the three visual components with the overall preference rating of each health service advertisement.
Results: Preferences for the advertisement depended mostly on the preference for the medical treatment information, whereas advertisements for complementary and alternative medical clinics depended also on the preference for the medical practitioner.
Conclusions: These results imply that the same health service advertisement will be perceived differently depending on whether it advertises Western or Oriental medical clinics.