Comparison of Different Frames of Numerical Information in Cochrane Plain Language Summaries

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
• Interventions: Other: Frequencies; Other: Percentages

• Registration Number: NCT03554252
• Lead Sponsor: University of Split, School of Medicine

Brief Summary

Participants will be randomly given one of two formats containing descriptions of health interventions. In one format, participants will have to read short summaries where results of the intervention are presented as frequencies and the side effects of health intervention are presented as percentages, while in another format the frames will be reversed (results will be presented as percentages and side effects as frequencies). After reading, participants will be asked several questions about the content of the summary and its conclusions.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2018-04-01
• Status Verified: 2018-05
• Study First Submitted: 2018-05-17
• Study First Submitted QC: 2018-05-30
• Study First Posted: 2018-06-13
• Primary Completion: 2018-08-01
• Study Completion: 2018-08-01
• Last Update Submitted: 2018-09-24
• Last Update Posted: 2018-09-25

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 225

Inclusion Criteria

• Patients who are visiting their family doctor, and are at least 18 old. Students of biomedical studies at University of Split School of Medicine, who are at least 18 years old.

Exclusion Criteria

• Participants younger than 18 years.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Frequencies	Frequencies	-
Percentages	Percentages	-

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Understanding	3 months	Number of the correct answers about the content of the summary, which will consist of four multiple choice questions (with four possible answers where only one is correct, for each question) about the text the participants are reading. Questions will be developed by research team and revised by expert in health communication. The scale ranges from 0-4, where greater score indicates better understanding of the material.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Attitudes towards the appropriateness of this type of presentation of health information	3 months	Likert type scale from 1-10 (1 indicating low appropriateness and 10 would be completely appropriate presentation)
Health numeracy	3 months	5 questions about the numerical tasks placed in medical content, total score is number of correct answers on those questions. The five questions are part of Numeracy Understanding in Medicine Instrument (Schapira et al, 2012), and we will translate only the questions focusing on Probability section. Cronbach's alpha in previous research was 0.86 (Schapira et al, 2012). The questions will be revised by independent translator and back translated to English. The scale range is from 0-5, where higher score indicates higher numeracy levels.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Split School of Medicine; 🇭🇷 Split, Croatia