Testing the Effect of Press Guides on Health Journalists

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.

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Medical Reporting
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Press Guide

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.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 50
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

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.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: 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.	Other: Press Guide; The press guide is a 1-page summary of the study findings, written by the investigators.
No Intervention: 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.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Comprehension of facts about the study article (covering study design, exposures, outcome measures, results, limitations, conflicts of interest) assessed using a brief test.	0 weeks (assessed during intervention)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Overall judgment of study newsworthiness (e.g., would you argue for/against covering story with editor, how convinced are you of study validity, what headline would you write,and usefulness of press release and (intervention group) press guide.	0 weeks (assessed during intervention)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center
• Collaborators: National Cancer Institute (NCI)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Lisa M. Schwartz, MD, MS, White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• 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.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: June 1, 2009
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): June 1, 2010
• Study Completion (Anticipated): December 1, 2010

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 17, 2009
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 10, 2009
• First Posted (Estimate): July 14, 2009

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): April 21, 2010
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 20, 2010
• Last Verified: April 1, 2010

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: risk communication; medical reporting; Mass media
• Other Study ID Numbers: 16782; NCI R01CA104721