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Background:The Guideline Evidence-based Health Information was published in 2017 and addresses health information providers. The long-term goal of the guideline is to improve the quality of health information. Evidence-based health information represents a prerequisite for informed decision-making. Health information providers lack competences in evidence-based medicine. Therefore, our aim was to develop and pilot-test a blended learning training programme for health information providers to enhance application of the guideline. Methods: Development:We developed the training programme according to the Medical Research Council guidance for developing and evaluating complex interventions. The training programme was planned on the basis of problem-based learning. It aims to impart competences in evidence-based medicine. Furthermore, it comprises the application of criteria for evidence-based health information. Pilot testing:We conducted a qualitative pilot study focusing on the acceptability and feasibility of the training programme. Health information providers were recruited and in-house training sessions were offered. Feasibility and acceptability were explored by structured class observations and in semi-structured focus group interviews with the participants after the training sessions. The transcripts and documentations were analysed using qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. The training was revised iteratively according to the results.

IntroductionHealth information is a prerequisite of informed decision-making. Criteria for development, content and presentation have recently been published in a corresponding guideline. Within a systematic search, 27 relevant checklists were identified, none of them, however, complying with the guideline or providing reasonably operationalised measurement items. Therefore, a draft of a checklist with 19 criteria was drafted. The current study aims at developing and validating this measure of quality.Methods and analysisThe validation design consists of five single studies to be conducted at the University of Halle-Wittenberg/Germany and Graz/Austria. (1) Achieving content validity through expert reviews of the first draft, (2) achieving feasibility using ‘think aloud’ in piloting with untrained users, (3) pretesting the instrument applied to health information materials without use of secondary sources: determining inter-rater reliability and criterion validity, (4) determining construct validity using information on proceedings and methods in the development process provided by the developers and (5) determining divergent validity in comparison with the Ensuring Quality Information for Patients (EQUIP) (expanded) Scale. The substudies will use varying samples of experts, students and developers and will apply the instrument to materials of various domains. Sample sizes will be adjusted to the particular research designs and questions. Analyses will employ qualitative methods, such as content analyses and discourse within the expert panel, and correlation-based methods both for determining inter-rater reliability and validity.Ethics and disseminationThe project is approved by the ethics committee of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (approval number: 2019 115). Results will be published, and the instrument made accessible on public health platforms. It is meant to become a certification standard. MAPPinfo can be used as a screening instrument without training or secondary sources. Although developed in the German language, the instrument will be applicable also in other languages.Trial registration numberAsPredected22546; date of registration: 24 July 2019.Protocol versionJuly 2020.

Background: The evidence-based guideline entitled guideline evidence-based health information emerged from the German Network for Evidence-based Medicine (DNEbM) and was published in February 2017. The guideline addresses providers of health information and its goal is to improve the quality of health information. In addition, we explored the competences of providers of health information and developed a training programme. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a training programme addressing providers of health information to support the application of the guideline evidence-based health information. We expected the intervention to improve the quality of health information in comparison to the provision of the guideline on its own. Methods/design: The trial uses a superiority randomised control group design with 10 months' follow-up. Twentysix providers of health information (groups with up to ten members) will be enrolled to compare the intervention (guideline and training programme) with usual care (a publicly available guideline). The 5-day training programme comprises an evidence-based medicine training module and a module to prepare the application of the guideline. The primary outcome parameter is the quality of the health information. Quality is operationalised as the extent of adherence to the guideline's recommendations. Each provider will prepare a single health information item informing a health-related decision on a topic freely chosen before randomisation. The quality of this information will be rated using the Mapping Health Information Quality (MAPPinfo) Checklist. An accompanying process evaluation will then be conducted. Discussion: The study results should show whether the efficacy of the intervention justifies implementation of the training programme to enhance health information developers' competences in evidence-based medicine and to ensure high-quality evidence-based health information (EBHI) in the long term.

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