Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda and The University of Oslo, Norway.
Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services, Global Health Unit, Oslo, Norway.
J Evid Based Med. 2015 May;8(2):84-90. doi: 10.1111/jebm.12153.
Claims about benefits and harms of treatments are common in the media. We engaged health journalists in prioritizing concepts of evidence-based medicine that we believe the public needs to understand to be able to assess claims about treatment effects; and which could improve how journalists report such information.
We conducted a three-day workshop with a group of Ugandan journalists in which we presented and explained the concepts. We asked journalists to prioritize groups of related concepts using four pre-specified criteria i.e. relevance of the concepts to journalists and their audiences; ease of comprehension; feasibility of developing resources for teaching the concepts and, whether such resources would potentially have an impact. Using a modified Delphi technique, participants ranked each group of concepts using these criteria on a scale of one to six (one = lowest; 6 = highest). We analyzed the rankings in real time using STATA statistical software.
All six groups of concepts were considered relevant and comprehensible with scores of five and six on a scale of one to six. Twenty two out of 25 participants reported having understood the concepts well, with subjective scores of above 75 on a scale of one to 100.
Journalists in Uganda recognize the importance of evidence-based medicine concepts in assessing claims about benefits and harms of treatments to them and their audiences. They should be empowered to use these and similar concepts in order to improve how information about effects of treatments is relayed in the media.
治疗效果相关的益处和危害的说法在媒体中很常见。我们让健康记者参与进来，优先考虑我们认为公众需要了解的循证医学概念，以便能够评估有关治疗效果的说法；并改善记者报道此类信息的方式。
我们与一组乌干达记者进行了为期三天的研讨会，在会上我们介绍并解释了这些概念。我们要求记者使用四个预先指定的标准，通过对相关概念进行分组来对这些概念进行优先排序，即概念与记者及其受众的相关性；概念的理解难易程度；开发相关教学资源的可行性；以及此类资源是否具有潜在影响。使用改良德尔菲技术，参与者根据这些标准对每组概念进行一到六分（一=最低；6=最高）的评分。我们使用 STATA 统计软件实时分析排名。
所有六组概念都被认为是相关的和可以理解的，得分均为五或六。25 名参与者中有 22 名报告说他们很好地理解了这些概念，主观评分在 1 到 100 之间超过 75。
乌干达的记者认识到评估治疗效果益处和危害的循证医学概念的重要性，这对他们自己和受众来说都很重要。应该赋予他们使用这些概念和类似概念的权力，以改善媒体中有关治疗效果的信息传递方式。
