Plain‐language summaries: An essential component to promote knowledge translation

Abstract

In this era of evidence‐based practice, scholarly work such as peer‐reviewed scientific publications plays a vital role in policy and decision‐making at an individual, organisation and country‐level. Alongside being considered an essential means of communicating scholarly work, scientific publications also investigate the specific domains that lack well‐established literature and thereby inform scientists and researchers to thrive for the betterment of the publics' well‐being. Thus, the main purpose of articulating the scientific, scholarly work should be to make it understandable and accessible to everyone, including the lay audience. However, oftentimes, researchers overlook the lay summaries while publishing the research findings.

Plain language summaries: A systematic review of theory, guidelines and empirical research

“…Most of the criteria referred to characteristics of the Linguistic Attributes category [ 3 , 6 , 8 , 13 , 15 , 18 , 20 – 25 , 27 , 40 , 43 – 45 , 50 , 52 , 54 , 55 , 58 – 78 ]. For example, in some articles, it was recommended to use active rather than passive voice [ 8 , 15 , 25 , 69 , 73 , 75 ], and some articles provide more or less specific recommendations regarding the use of jargon: avoid jargon [ 54 , 64 , 71 – 73 , 75 – 78 ]; use only 2% jargon in the whole text [ 6 ]; use only short words or sentences, avoid polysyllabic words, acronyms or abbreviations [ 18 , 20 , 50 , 60 , 73 , 75 , 77 , 78 ]; avoid technical terms [ 66 , 72 ]; avoid potentially misunderstood words [ 20 ] or define terms if necessary [ 18 , 22 , 66 , 73 , 75 , 77 ]. Using technical terms and defining them may be reasonable if oversimplifying terms or concepts leads to inappropriate,...…”

“…Lastly, we found criteria that referred to the characteristics of the Contextual Information category [ 8 , 9 , 15 , 18 , 20 , 22 – 24 , 27 , 38 , 42 , 50 , 52 , 55 , 57 , 59 , 63 , 64 , 67 , 72 , 73 , 75 , 78 , 80 , 84 , 86 – 91 ]: For example, publications included specifications regarding PLS authorship [ 8 , 9 , 38 , 64 , 80 , 87 ], and whether the submission of a PLS is or should be mandatory [ 18 , 75 , 89 ]. Another main contextual subject focused on the writing and publication process: There were specifications of where or how the PLS is or should be published (e.g., open access publishing [see 9 , 80 ]) and some articles included detailed descriptions outlining the writing and publishing process of the PLS [ 52 , 73 , 78 , 84 , 90 ].…”

“…The considerable variation in the terms that are used to refer to PLSs [ 9 ] may be partly related to the different aims that the specific parties (e.g., authors, stakeholders or publishers) pursue with their PLSs. On the one hand, some are guided by the explicit aim of translating medical evidence into a PLS to promote understanding thus enabling patients to actively engage in the process of shared decision making [ 17 ] or to increase patient engagement in clinical research [ 18 , 19 ]. Terms used for these PLSs include, for example, ‘clinical trial results summaries for laypersons’ [ 20 , 21 ], ‘patient lay summaries’ [ 22 ] or ‘consumer summaries’ [ 23 ].…”

“…Terms used for these PLSs include, for example, ‘clinical trial results summaries for laypersons’ [ 20 , 21 ], ‘patient lay summaries’ [ 22 ] or ‘consumer summaries’ [ 23 ]. On the other hand, publishers of scientific journals may primarily aim to increase the impact and accessibility of the published articles [ 18 ]. They might use terms such as ‘lay summaries’ [e.g., 24 – 26 ], ‘translational abstracts’ [ 27 ] or ‘lay abstracts’ [e.g., 24 ].…”

Using blogs to make peer-reviewed research more accessible

“…Under our approach, a group of early career researchers has been responsible for sharing other people's research. Yet, paper authors themselves can adapt our approach, as some in the medical community have called for [30]. Alternative approaches to research dissemination, such as sharing graphical abstracts, video abstracts, and Twitter threads and discussions, are also gaining traction in education research (e.g., [31,32]), but are restricted to a limited number of journals and researchers.…”