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Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study
BACKGROUND: One of the most important formats to disseminate the evidence in health to different populations are Cochrane Plain Language Summaries (PLSs). PLSs should be written in a simplified language, easily understandable and providing clear message for the consumer. The aim of this study was to...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9464378/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36088293 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-022-01721-7 |
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author | Banić, Aleksandra Fidahić, Mahir Šuto, Jelena Roje, Rea Vuka, Ivana Puljak, Livia Buljan, Ivan |
author_facet | Banić, Aleksandra Fidahić, Mahir Šuto, Jelena Roje, Rea Vuka, Ivana Puljak, Livia Buljan, Ivan |
author_sort | Banić, Aleksandra |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: One of the most important formats to disseminate the evidence in health to different populations are Cochrane Plain Language Summaries (PLSs). PLSs should be written in a simplified language, easily understandable and providing clear message for the consumer. The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which PLSs are customized for lay persons, specifically by providing conclusive, comprehensible, and readable messages. METHODS: The study analyzed Cochrane PLSs of interventional studies (N = 4360) in the English language published from 1995 to 2019. We categorized the conclusiveness into one of the following categories: “positive”, “positive inconclusive”, “no evidence”, “no opinion”, “negative”, “negative inconclusive”, “unclear”, “equal”, “equal inconclusive”. Language characteristics were analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. The level of readability was measured by SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) index, indicating the number of years of education required to read the text. For each PLS, we also collected the following data: Cochrane Review Network, year of publication and number of authors. RESULTS: Most of the PLSs (80%) did not have a conclusive message. In 53% PLSs there was no concluding opinion about the studied intervention or the conclusion was unclear. The most frequent conclusiveness category was “no opinion” (30%), and its frequency increased over time. The conclusiveness categories were similarly dispersed across Cochrane Networks. PLSs were written in an objective style, with high levels of analytical tone and clout above neutral, but a lower relation to authenticity and tone. The median number of years of non-specific education needed to read the PLSs was 14.9 (IQR 13.8 to 16.1), indicating that the person needs almost 15 years of general education to read the content with ease. CONCLUSION: Most of the Cochrane PLSs provided no concluding opinion or unclear conclusion regarding the effects of analyzed intervention. Analysis of readability indicated that they may be difficult to read for the lay population without medical education. Our results indicate that PLSs may not be so plain, and that the writing of Cochrane PLSs requires more effort. Tools used in this study could improve PLSs and make them better suited for lay audiences. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12874-022-01721-7. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9464378 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94643782022-09-12 Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study Banić, Aleksandra Fidahić, Mahir Šuto, Jelena Roje, Rea Vuka, Ivana Puljak, Livia Buljan, Ivan BMC Med Res Methodol Research BACKGROUND: One of the most important formats to disseminate the evidence in health to different populations are Cochrane Plain Language Summaries (PLSs). PLSs should be written in a simplified language, easily understandable and providing clear message for the consumer. The aim of this study was to examine the extent to which PLSs are customized for lay persons, specifically by providing conclusive, comprehensible, and readable messages. METHODS: The study analyzed Cochrane PLSs of interventional studies (N = 4360) in the English language published from 1995 to 2019. We categorized the conclusiveness into one of the following categories: “positive”, “positive inconclusive”, “no evidence”, “no opinion”, “negative”, “negative inconclusive”, “unclear”, “equal”, “equal inconclusive”. Language characteristics were analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. The level of readability was measured by SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) index, indicating the number of years of education required to read the text. For each PLS, we also collected the following data: Cochrane Review Network, year of publication and number of authors. RESULTS: Most of the PLSs (80%) did not have a conclusive message. In 53% PLSs there was no concluding opinion about the studied intervention or the conclusion was unclear. The most frequent conclusiveness category was “no opinion” (30%), and its frequency increased over time. The conclusiveness categories were similarly dispersed across Cochrane Networks. PLSs were written in an objective style, with high levels of analytical tone and clout above neutral, but a lower relation to authenticity and tone. The median number of years of non-specific education needed to read the PLSs was 14.9 (IQR 13.8 to 16.1), indicating that the person needs almost 15 years of general education to read the content with ease. CONCLUSION: Most of the Cochrane PLSs provided no concluding opinion or unclear conclusion regarding the effects of analyzed intervention. Analysis of readability indicated that they may be difficult to read for the lay population without medical education. Our results indicate that PLSs may not be so plain, and that the writing of Cochrane PLSs requires more effort. Tools used in this study could improve PLSs and make them better suited for lay audiences. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12874-022-01721-7. BioMed Central 2022-09-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9464378/ /pubmed/36088293 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-022-01721-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Banić, Aleksandra Fidahić, Mahir Šuto, Jelena Roje, Rea Vuka, Ivana Puljak, Livia Buljan, Ivan Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study |
title | Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study |
title_full | Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study |
title_fullStr | Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study |
title_full_unstemmed | Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study |
title_short | Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study |
title_sort | conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9464378/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36088293 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-022-01721-7 |
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