Introduction and objective: Considering the complexity of medical discourse, the enormous amount of information, including fake news, it becomes increasingly challenging to develop health literacy among the general population and to ensure efficient communication of scientific findings on the effects of health interventions to various types of recipients. We aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of how the various types of audiences perceive various formats for presenting data from Cochrane systematic reviews (SRs).
Material and methods: We conducted focus group interviews with university employees, students, pharmacists, patients, caregivers, physicians, and nurses. Participants were presented with the following information formats: plain language summary (PLS), an audio record of the PLS, summary of findings table, vlogshot, blogshot, infographic, press release, comic drawing, and scientific abstract. During a moderated discussion, participants were encouraged to share their opinions about usefulness of the formats and their strengths and weaknesses. The interviews were video recorded, transcribed, and coded. To identify the patterns of preferences, the method of constant comparison and visual display techniques were used.
Results: The analysis revealed the various preferences regarding the presentation of health information. The following characteristics of the information emerged as the most important: trustworthiness, practical application, comprehensibility, information structure, graphical means used, clarity, individual reactions and interpretations.
Conclusions: Our study revealed several key factors that are considered by recipients when evaluating the various information formats. These include the way the information is presented, the perceived quality of the underlying studies, and individual benefits.
Keywords: consumer health information; health education; health literacy; knowledge translation.