Open Pharma recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications

Rosenberg, Adeline; Baróniková, Slávka; Feighery, Linda; Gattrell, William; Olsen, Rikke Egelund; Watson, Adam; Koder, Tim; Winchester, Christopher C

doi:10.1080/03007995.2021.1971185

Cited by 27 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…It would also be of interest to evaluate the understanding of the information presented in a PLS rather than focus on the preferred format alone. Training at professional societies such as the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals [ 46 ] and the widespread use of additional tools now available to guide the effective production of PLSs [ 6 , 14 , 19 - 21 ] will help facilitate this.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Optimizing Readability and Format of Plain Language Summaries for Medical Research Articles: Cross-sectional Survey Study

Silvagnoli¹,

Shepherd²,

Pritchett³

et al. 2022

J Med Internet Res

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Background Plain language summaries (PLSs) are intended to provide readers with a clear, nontechnical, and easily understandable overview of medical and scientific literature; however, audience preferences for specific PLS formats have yet to be fully explored. Objective This study aims to evaluate the preferred readability level and format for PLSs of medical research articles of different disease states via a web-based survey of audiences of different age groups. Methods Articles describing phase III clinical trials published in top-level, peer-reviewed journals between May 2016 and May 2018 were identified for 3 chronic disease states representing a range of adult patient age groups: (1) psoriasis, a skin disease representative of younger patients; (2) multiple sclerosis (MS), a neurological disease representative of middle-aged patients; and (3) rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a painful joint disease representative of older patients. Four PLSs were developed for each research article, of which 3 were text-only summaries (written with high, medium, and low complexity) and 1 was an infographic. To evaluate each of the 4 PLS formats, a 20-question open survey (specific to one of the 3 diseases) was sent to a representative sample selected via UK-based patient association websites, Twitter, and Facebook patient groups. A weighted-average calculation was applied to respondents’ ranked preferences for each PLS format. Results For all 3 articles, the weighted-average preference scores showed that infographic (psoriasis 2.91, MS 2.71, and RA 2.78) and medium-complexity text-based PLS (reading age 14-17 years, US Grade 9-11; psoriasis 2.90; MS 2.47; RA 2.77) were the two most preferred PLS formats. Conclusions Audience preferences should be accounted for when preparing PLSs to accompany peer-reviewed original research articles. Oversimplified text can be viewed negatively, and graphical summaries or medium-complexity text-based summaries appear to be the most popular. Plain Language Summary Patients and caregivers should have the chance to read about medical research in a format they can understand. However, we do not know much about the formats that people with different illnesses or ages prefer. Researchers wanted to find out more about this. They selected 3 medical articles about illnesses that affect different age groups: psoriasis (younger patients), multiple sclerosis (middle-aged patients), and rheumatoid arthritis (older patients). They created 4 summaries of each article. One was a graphical summary, and the other 3 were words-only summaries of high, medium, and low complexity. Then, the researchers posted surveys on UK patient group websites and Facebook patient groups to ask people what they thought of the summaries. The surveys were taken by 167 people. These people were patients with psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, or rheumatoid arthritis, or their caregivers. Most were women, and about half had a university degree. For each illness, most people preferred the graphical summary. Among the word-only summaries, most people preferred the medium-complexity wording written for a reading age of 14 to 17 years. People felt that the graphical and medium-complexity summaries were clear and concise, while the others used jargon or were too simple. Authors of medical articles should remember these results when writing summaries for patients. More research is needed about the preferences of other people, such as those with other illnesses. (See Multimedia Appendix 1 for the graphical summary of the plain language summary.)

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The benefits of PLSs have been recognized [ 17 ]; previous studies have aimed to understand different stakeholders’ perspectives on PLSs [ 18 ]; and helpful tools are available to assist with the development of PLSs [ 6 , 19 - 21 ]. However, research on the most effective communication strategies remains limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing Readability and Format of Plain Language Summaries for Medical Research Articles: Cross-sectional Survey Study

Silvagnoli¹,

Shepherd²,

Pritchett³

et al. 2022

J Med Internet Res

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“…Generating Plain Language Summaries of Scientific Publications ongoing to provide guidance, and minimum standards for PLS have recently been proposed. [8][9][10] However, previous guidelines do not address the need of ethical considerations for the generation of PLS nor do they provide guidance on cocreation with the target audience.…”

Section: Theme Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Generating Plain Language Summaries of Scientific Publications with Ethical Foundations: A Practical “How-To” Guide Cocreated with Patients

Schindler

2022

AMWA

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Peer-reviewed scientific publications are written by scientists with peers in mind. However, there is a growing demand of patients and other nonspecialists to understand the potential implications of clinical and medical research. Research summaries of scientific articles in easy-to-read language—called plain language summaries (PLS)—are currently being developed to broaden the reach of scientific articles beyond expert audiences. While PLS can help nonexperts to understand and be informed about scientific articles, there is a risk that PLS contribute to publication bias and hence misinformation of patients and the public and thus achieve the opposite of their intention. Potential issues are an unbalanced selection of the scientific source articles for which a PLS is initiated, lack of alignment of the data presented in the PLS and in the source article, unbalanced reporting of efficacy and safety data, absence of reporting the primary endpoint, or over- or underreporting of secondary endpoint results. To objectively inform patients and to become a trustworthy source of information, the writing of PLS needs to be firmly embedded in a set of ethical principles. To safeguard balanced and fair PLS writing, the cocreated “How To” Guide on PLS writing developed by the Patient Focused Medicines Development initiative comprises a set of 15 ethical considerations. These include the necessity for objective reporting, the need for balanced presentation, the importance of audience focus, the need to apply health literacy principles, and the importance of using inclusive and respectful language. The “How-To” Guide was developed in a stepwise process with several rounds of cocreation, public consultation (two rounds), internal review, and a final external review. The iterative development process ensured input from a wide variety of stakeholders (patient representatives, industry members, publishers, researchers, medical communications agencies, and public officials involved in research bodies). The final “How-To” Guide is a standalone, practical, ready-to-use tool to support multistakeholder cocreation of PLS.

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“…Plain language summaries (PLS) are short summaries of medical publications but written in every-day language that can be easier understood by patients and caregivers [ 67 ]. Increasingly, PLS are becoming an established part of company-sponsored research publications [ 68 – 70 ] and recently, Open Pharm, a multi-sponsor collaboration of publishers, pharmaceutical companies, patients, academics, non-pharmaceutical funders and regulators, have provided a set of recommendations for PLS, that should also be able to be indexed in medical search engines such as PubMed [ 67 ]. Prioritising the generation of PLS and other digital storytelling tools by medical affairs teams is expected to continue post-pandemic.…”

Section: Digital Fitness For Medical Affairs Function: Insights and Learnings For The Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Transformation in Medical Affairs Sparked by the Pandemic: Insights and Learnings from COVID-19 Era and Beyond

Furtner¹,

Shinde

Singh

et al. 2021

Pharm Med

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A number of developments, including increasing regulatory and compliance scrutiny, increased transparency expectations, an increasingly vocal patient, patient centricity and greater requirements for real-world evidence, have driven the growth and importance of medical affairs as a trusted, science-driven partner over the past decade. The healthcare environment is shifting towards a digital, data-driven and payor-focused model. Likewise, medical affairs as a function within the pharmaceutical industry has become more “patient-centric” with strategic engagements embracing payers and patients apart from clinicians. The pandemic has impacted the healthcare industry as well as the function of medical affairs in numerous ways and has brought new challenges and demands to tackle. There is indeed a silver lining due to intense digital transformation within this crisis. The emerging digital innovation and new technologies in healthcare, medical education and virtual communications are likely to stay and advance further. In this review, we discuss how the digital transformation sparked by the pandemic has impacted the medical affairs function in pharmaceuticals and provide further insights and learnings from the COVID-19 era and beyond. Based on the learning and insights, digital innovation in three key strategic imperatives of medical affairs—HCP engagement, external partnerships and data generation will enable medical affairs to become future-fit as a strategic leadership function.

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Open Pharma recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications

Cited by 27 publications

References 3 publications

Optimizing Readability and Format of Plain Language Summaries for Medical Research Articles: Cross-sectional Survey Study

Optimizing Readability and Format of Plain Language Summaries for Medical Research Articles: Cross-sectional Survey Study

Generating Plain Language Summaries of Scientific Publications with Ethical Foundations: A Practical “How-To” Guide Cocreated with Patients

Digital Transformation in Medical Affairs Sparked by the Pandemic: Insights and Learnings from COVID-19 Era and Beyond

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