This is why magazines in waiting rooms are always out of date

The answer to the question that has plagued many a patient

(Rex )

Doctors’ waiting rooms are stressful and boring enough as it is, but the situation is usually made worse when you find yourself faced with a stack of magazines telling you how to prepare for your summer holiday in December.

But is it really too much to ask that the titles provided by surgeries be timely and relevant?

Apparently not – the real reason patients end up reading dog-eared, back-dated magazines is because other people have nabbed the most recent titles, according to new research.

And if more recent magazines are available, they tend to be titles that address more serious or specialist topics.

Scientists in New Zealand placed 87 magazines into three mixed piles in the waiting room of an Auckland surgery.

These included “non-gossipy” magazines, such as Time, the Economist and National Geographic, as well as “gossipy” ones. Gossipy was defined as having five or more photographs of celebrities on the front cover and most gossipy as having up to 10 such images.

The results, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), showed that over the course of 31 days the newest titles disappeared at the fastest rate – while gossipy magazines were more likely to be taken than non-gossipy ones.

By the end of the month 41 of the magazines had disappeared, equating to a rate of 1.32 a day. Of the 19 non-gossipy magazines (four Time magazines and 15 of the Economist), none had disappeared. But of the 27 gossipy magazines, only one was left.

Lead researcher Bruce Arroll said: "General practice waiting rooms contain mainly old magazines. This phenomenon relates to the disappearance of the magazines rather than to the supply of old ones. Gossipy magazines were more likely to disappear than non-gossipy ones.

"On the grounds of cost we advise practices to supply old copies of non-gossipy magazines. A waiting room science curriculum is urgently needed."

And in case you were worried, “no gossipy magazines were harmed” in the course of the research.