gms | German Medical Science

Background/research question: According to Nutbeam [1], the term ‘health literacy’ encompasses a set of skills ranging from a basic understanding of information to sufficient knowledge and communication skills and, finally, to the ability to critically apprehend health information and use it to exert control over one’s life and promote health outcomes. Despite its high individual and societal importance, inadequate levels of health literacy are widespread [2]. Plain language summaries (PLS) are short summaries of research aimed at laypersons that are written in an easily understandable manner. We propose that PLS may promote health literacy in terms of increased understanding, knowledge and perceived empowerment, i.e. the ability to utilize information for one’s own purposes. Using examples of crucial health promotion domains, we aim to find out how individuals from the general population perceive and process PLS of meta-analyses in terms of improved understanding, knowledge and empowerment.

Methods: In the context of a large project investigating a wide range of different research questions, we conducted a preregistered randomized controlled online study using a large age- and education-diverse sample (N = 2,288). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. They read two summaries of different meta-analyses where technical terms were (a) replaced by or paraphrased using lay-friendly terms (PLS group 1), (b) explained in a glossary at the end of the summary (PLS group 2), and (c) included in the summary (control group). Participants were then asked to rate perceived understanding as well as perceived empowerment on a 1–8 Likert scale. Additionally, a one-item multiple choice knowledge test was applied after each summary.

Results: In total, 2,038 participants completed those parts of the online survey that were relevant to our research question, and were thus included in our analysis. Understanding and empowerment were significantly higher in both PLS groups than in the control group (partial R2 = .020 and .022, p < .001 for understanding and partial R2 = .019 and .017, p <.001 for empowerment). Knowledge was significantly higher in PLS group 1 than in PLS group 2 and in the control group (OR = 0.65-1.39, p < .05). Results of another currently ongoing randomized controlled study with the same research question will additionally be presented.

Conclusion: Plain language summaries appear to be a promising tool to advance domain-specific health literacy.

Competing interests: The authors are part of a research project in which guidelines for writing plain language summaries are developed.