Testing the Effect of Press Guides on Health Journalists

NCT ID: NCT00938938

Last Updated: 2010-04-21

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: UNKNOWN
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 50 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2009-06-30
• Study Completion Date: 2010-12-31

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to test the effect of adding a "press guide" to standard materials that journalists routinely receive regarding research published in medical journals.

Detailed Description

The news media has a powerful influence on public perceptions about health and health care; and much of what people -- including many physicians -- know and believe about medicine comes from the print and broadcast media. Several studies, however, have raised questions about how well the press covers medical issues, pointing out errors and omissions in coverage and misleading presentations of statistics. The goal is to help train journalists to better understand and cover medical research, and to help improve communication between journalists and medical journals.

Journalists traditionally write newspaper articles about medical research using information from press releases and the medical journal article's abstract or full text. The objective is to test whether the addition of a 'press guide' (a one-page summary of the study findings) in addition to these other materials improves comprehension of facts about the study article and the overall judgment of the newsworthiness of the study.

Conditions

Medical Reporting

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

Press guide plus press release

Participants in the intervention group will receive a press guide (a one-page summary of study findings written by the investigators) in addition to the journal's full narrative press release for the selected article, a copy of the article's abstract, and a link to the full text of the journal article.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Press Guide

Intervention Type: OTHER

The press guide is a 1-page summary of the study findings, written by the investigators.

Press release only

Participants in the control group will receive the journal's full narrative press release for the selected article, a copy of the article's abstract, and a link to the full text of the journal article.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Press Guide

The press guide is a 1-page summary of the study findings, written by the investigators.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• All journalists attending the 2009 NIH/Dartmouth/VA Medicine in the Media Symposium will be invited to participate in the study.
• The symposium, which is held annually, is open to journalists across the country and from abroad.

Participants who are Health Journalists at the Health Journalism 2010 conference will be invited to participate in the study. This annual conference is being held in Chicago, IL at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place During April 22, 2010-April 25, 2010.

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

NIH

Sponsor Role: collaborator

White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center

FED

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

White River Junction VAMC

Principal Investigators

Lisa M. Schwartz, MD, MS

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center

References

Woloshin S, Schwartz LM, Casella SL, Kennedy AT, Larson RJ. Press releases by academic medical centers: not so academic? Ann Intern Med. 2009 May 5;150(9):613-8. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-150-9-200905050-00007.

Reference Type: BACKGROUND

PMID: 19414840 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

NCI R01CA104721

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: secondary_id

16782

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id