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EDITORIALS: Marcus Müllner and Trish Groves Making research papers in the BMJ more accessible BMJ 2002; 325: 456 [Full text]

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Responding to consumers/public needs

Fiona McLean   (30 August 2002)

Responding to consumers/public needs 30 August 2002
Fiona McLean, Health care information officer British Library, Nw1 2DB Send response to journal: Re: Responding to consumers/public needs	BMJ is very much a journal for health (and health information) professionals, of course. As its freely available full-text on the internet, it will *also* be used by non-professionals, many of whom will be unfamiliar with medical and statistical terminology (including critical appraisal skills). There are lots of other resources in the same situation, of course, including PubMed and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR). It will also affect Clinical Evidence. When I explained the concept of CE to a non-professional colleague, she was keen to look up 'back pain'. However, she was quickly disheartened, and lost interest after asking me what an 'RCT' was. Of course, some 'expert patients' may have more expertise in all the medical research and terminology relevant to their condition than their GP! The issue of whether resources produced for professionals ought to take extra steps to be accessible to non-professionals does not have an easy answer, particularly for those where the resource is not primarily targetting the public. There is certainly a huge public appetite for medical information, of course, and providing it as appropriate is valuable, but adding a jargon-free patient-friendly version is also labour intensive. The Cochrane Collaboration Consumer Network (http://www.cochraneconsumer.com/)is an admirable initiative, although facing a huge task. I would also like their lay summaries to be included as a section in the abstract on the CDSR (with a disclaimer if there is concern about including such an interpretation), or at least a prominent link from the CDSR abstract to the lay abstract on the CCCN website. I would not suggest extending this to BMJ, and adding to the considerable existing burden on BMJ staff, reviewers or authors. But *if* there are places in the short summaries for 'This Week in the BMJ' where there is an easy choice between medical jargon and plain english, without 'dumbing down', it might be worth trying the latter? The situation is more straightforward when it comes to materials whose target audience is primarily patients; the Plain English Campain's guide makes useful reading at http://www.plainenglishcampaign.com/medicalguide.pdf Although with patient/public information there are the additional challenges of meeting the information needs of people with varying literacy skills, disabilities, cultures and languages.. Fiona McLean