Presenting Summary Information From Cochrane Systematic Reviews: Protocol for Research of Infographics Presentation vs. Plain Language Summary

Not Applicable

Completed

Brief Summary: The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of infographics, compared to standard PLS format, in presenting information, in terms of understanding and remembering research results by consumers.

Detailed Description: The investigators will conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with two different formats of the same systematic review summary (Infographics, PLS). The content of these two formats is based on the same systematic review, but the ways of data presentation will differ: visual presentation in plain language and plain language only. The interventions will be delivered online in November 2016, with members of the consumers' groups for pregnancy and parenting - RODA ("Roditelji u akciji", engl."Parents in action"), which gathers different types of consumers: pregnant women, young mothers and parenting and pregnancy advisors; and the members of the Association for Patients' Rights. The trial will be voluntary and anonymous. The survey will consist of 5 parts, in the following order: 1) one format of the summary (randomly assigned), 2) health numeracy, 3) demographic data 4) comprehension test of the information given in the summary, and 5) user friendliness of information and overall satisfaction with the given summary assessed by survey.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

Eligible participants will be members of RODA and Association for Patients' Rights (women) .

Exclusion Criteria

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
PLS	PLS	The control group will receive PLS: text format with simple explanation of the survey topic main findings and is intended for lay audience.
Infographics	Infographics	Infographics format of a Cochrane systematic review summary represents the experimental intervention in the trial, where the results are presented with text and pictures.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Understanding of the Summary Content	One month (30 days)	The questions will focus on understanding the benefits and risks of the intervention and the quality of evidence described in the systematic review. There will be 10 open ended questions, which will be assessed by two assessors, and the total score will be the sum of correct answers (total score ranging from 0-10). Higher scores would represent greater understanding of the content.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Reading Experience	One month (30 days)	This section of the survey will include 5 questions about the experience of participants about the text they read, measured on a 10-point Likert type scale, where 1 means do not agree at all and 10 means fully agree. The total score is the sum of scores on all five answers (minimum 5, maximum 50). Greater scores indicate more positive reading experience.
User Friendliness	One month (30 days)	This section of the survey will have 5 questions concerning how easy it was for the participant to find relevant information, measured by a 10-point Likert type scale where the answer 1 means I do not agree at all and 10 means I fully agree. The total score is the sum of scores on all the answers (minimum 5, maximum 50). Higher scores indicate greater perception of the summary format as more user friendly.