Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada.
TRIBE Graduate Program, University of Split School of Medicine, Split, Croatia.
PLoS One. 2020 Aug 26;15(8):e0238025. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238025. eCollection 2020.
As production of rapid reviews (RRs) increases in healthcare, knowing how to efficiently convey RR evidence to various end-users is important given they are often intended to directly inform decision-making. Little is known about how often RRs are produced in the published or unpublished domains, and what and how information is structured.
To compare and contrast report format and content features of journal-published (JP) and non-journal published (NJP) RRs.
JP RRs were identified from key databases, and NJP RRs were identified from a grey literature search of 148 RR producing organizations and were sampled proportionate to cluster size by organization and product type to match the JP RR group. We extracted and formally compared 'how' (i.e., visual arrangement) and 'what' information was presented.
We identified 103 RRs (52 JP and 51 NJP) from 2016. A higher percentage of certain features were observed in JP RRs compared to NJP RRs (e.g., reporting authors; use of a traditional journal article structure; section headers including abstract, methods, discussion, conclusions, acknowledgments, conflict of interests, and author contributions; and use of figures (e.g., Study Flow Diagram) in the main document). For NJP RRs, a higher percentage of features were observed (e.g., use non-traditional report structures; bannering of executive summary sections and appendices; use of typographic cues; and including outcome tables). NJP RRs were more than double in length versus JP RRs. Including key messages was uncommon in both groups.
This comparative study highlights differences between JP and NJP RRs. Both groups may benefit from better use of plain language, and more clear and concise design. Alternative innovative formats and end-user preferences for content and layout should be studied further with thought given to other considerations to ensure better packaging of RR results to facilitate uptake into policy and practice.
The full protocol is available at: https://osf.io/29xvk/.
随着医疗保健领域快速综述（RRs）的产量增加，鉴于它们通常旨在直接为决策提供信息，了解如何有效地将 RR 证据传达给各种最终用户是很重要的。目前尚不清楚已发表和未发表的 RR 文献中 RR 的产生频率，以及信息的结构和方式。
比较和对比期刊发表（JP）和非期刊发表（NJP）RR 的报告格式和内容特征。
从主要数据库中确定 JP RR，从 148 个 RR 生产组织的灰色文献搜索中确定 NJP RR，并按组织和产品类型的聚类大小进行比例抽样，以与 JP RR 组匹配。我们提取并正式比较了“如何”（即视觉排列）和“什么”信息的呈现方式。
我们从 2016 年确定了 103 项 RR（52 项 JP 和 51 项 NJP）。与 NJP RR 相比，某些特征在 JP RR 中更为常见（例如，报告作者；使用传统的期刊文章结构；包括摘要、方法、讨论、结论、致谢、利益冲突和作者贡献的标题；以及在主要文档中使用图表（例如，研究流程图））。对于 NJP RR，更多的特征是可见的（例如，使用非传统的报告结构；在执行摘要部分和附录部分使用横幅；使用排版提示；并包括结果表）。NJP RR 的长度是 JP RR 的两倍多。两组都很少包含关键信息。
这项比较研究强调了 JP 和 NJP RR 之间的差异。两组都可能受益于更清晰的语言表达和更简洁明了的设计。应该进一步研究替代创新格式和最终用户对内容和布局的偏好，同时考虑其他因素，以确保更好地包装 RR 结果，以促进将其纳入政策和实践。
完整的方案可在以下网址获得：https://osf.io/29xvk/。
