Conclusiveness, linguistic characteristics and readability of Cochrane plain language summaries of intervention reviews: a cross-sectional study

Ref ID 843
First Author A. Banic
Journal BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2022
URL https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12874-022-01721-7
Keywords Cochrane
Abstract / summary
Language
Certainty
Problem(s) Unwieldy/ difficult to read
Inconclusive or lack of recommendations
Weaknesses identified in some Cochrane reviews
Number of systematic reviews included 4360
Summary of Findings From 4360 Cochrane plain language summaries of interventional studies published from 1995 to 2019. Most of the plain language summaries (80%) did not have a conclusive message. In 53% plain language summaries 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 median number of years of non-specific education needed to read the plain language summaries 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.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? No