Testing the Effect of Press Guides on Health Journalists

Not Applicable

• Conditions: Medical Reporting
• Interventions: Other: Press Guide

• Registration Number: NCT00938938
• Lead Sponsor: White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to test the effect of adding a "press guide" to standard materials that journalists routinely receive regarding research published in medical journals.

Detailed Description

The news media has a powerful influence on public perceptions about health and health care; and much of what people -- including many physicians -- know and believe about medicine comes from the print and broadcast media. Several studies, however, have raised questions about how well the press covers medical issues, pointing out errors and omissions in coverage and misleading presentations of statistics. The goal is to help train journalists to better understand and cover medical research, and to help improve communication between journalists and medical journals.

Journalists traditionally write newspaper articles about medical research using information from press releases and the medical journal article's abstract or full text. The objective is to test whether the addition of a 'press guide' (a one-page summary of the study findings) in addition to these other materials improves comprehension of facts about the study article and the overall judgment of the newsworthiness of the study.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2009-06
• Study First Submitted: 2009-06-17
• Study First Submitted QC: 2009-07-10
• Study First Posted: 2009-07-14
• Status Verified: 2010-04
• Last Update Submitted: 2010-04-20
• Last Update Posted: 2010-04-21
• Primary Completion: 2010-06
• Study Completion: 2010-12

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 50

Inclusion Criteria

• All journalists attending the 2009 NIH/Dartmouth/VA Medicine in the Media Symposium will be invited to participate in the study.
• The symposium, which is held annually, is open to journalists across the country and from abroad.

Participants who are Health Journalists at the Health Journalism 2010 conference will be invited to participate in the study. This annual conference is being held in Chicago, IL at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place During April 22, 2010-April 25, 2010.

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Press guide plus press release	Press Guide	Participants in the intervention group will receive a press guide (a one-page summary of study findings written by the investigators) in addition to the journal's full narrative press release for the selected article, a copy of the article's abstract, and a link to the full text of the journal article.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Comprehension of facts about the study article (covering study design, exposures, outcome measures, results, limitations, conflicts of interest) assessed using a brief test.	0 weeks (assessed during intervention)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Overall judgment of study newsworthiness (e.g., would you argue for/against covering story with editor, how convinced are you of study validity, what headline would you write,and usefulness of press release and (intervention group) press guide.	0 weeks (assessed during intervention)