Use of plain language summaries by healthcare professionals: an Open Pharma survey

<p dir="ltr">Poster presented at the 2025 European Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP), 27–29 January 2025, London, UK.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Objective</b></p><p dir="ltr">Plain language summaries (PLS) are easy-to-read summaries of scientific research articles[1].Few articles are published with easy-to-find PLS[2], but theyare valued by healthcare professionals (HCPs)[3], and pharmaceutical companies are increasingly writing PLS to accompany articles[4].Little is known about how HCPs find and use PLS; we developed a survey to assess this.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Research design and methods</b></p><p dir="ltr">An 18-question online survey was sent by email (24 April–17 June 2024) to 5141 HCPs who had previously contributed to articles sponsored by AstraZeneca, Ipsen or GSK.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Results</b></p><p dir="ltr">Of 188 respondents, three (2%) were excluded for not being HCPs. Most eligible respondents had more than 20 years’ experience in clinical practice (62%, 115/185), and 60% (111/185) did not speak English as their first language. Most respondents (72%, 133/185) had read/contributed to at least one PLS. These respondents found short, text-based (78%, 104/133) and infographic (71%, 94/133) PLS formats the most useful, and 73% (97/133) would like all Phase 3 articles to include a PLS. However, 5% (7/133) had never read/used the PLS when an article includes one. The 126 respondents (95%, 126/133) who had read/used PLS used them to: quickly understand an article (76%, 96/126); keep up to date with topics outside their speciality (33%, 42/126); help interactions with patients/advocacy groups (32%, 40/126); and/or share with patients/carers to read on their own (32%, 40/126). Most respondents (71%, 89/126) found PLS by chance alongside full-text articles.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr"><b>Conclusions</b></p><p dir="ltr">PLS help communicate scientific research to time-restricted HCPs. Publishing more PLS and improving how they are found will help broaden the impact of scientific research.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>References</b></p><p dir="ltr">1. Rosenberg A, Baróniková S, Feighery L, Gattrell W, Egelund Olsen R, Watson A, Koder T and Winchester C. Open Pharma recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications. Curr Med Red Opin. 2021;37:2015–6. doi:10.1080/03007995.2021.1971185.</p><p dir="ltr">2. Gattrell W, Wager K, Sheikh N and Chisholm A. Prevalence and characteristics of plain language summaries indexed in PubMed. Curr Med Res Opin. 2022;38:S41–2. doi:10.1080/03007995.2022.2044117.</p><p dir="ltr">3. Lobban D, Oliver J, Buttaro M, Falleni D and McGrath M. Do healthcare professionals really value plain language summaries? Curr Med Res Opin. 2022;38:S32–3. doi:10.1080/03007995.2022.2044117.</p><p dir="ltr">4. Ipsen. Our pledge: summaries in plain language for all journal publications. 2022. Available from: <a href="https://www.ipsen.com/general/our-pledge-summaries-in-plain-language-for-all-journal-publications/" target="_blank">https://www.ipsen.com/general/our-pledge-summaries-in-plain-language-for-all-journal-publications/</a> (Accessed 28 August 2024).</p><p><br></p>