Towards a Better Involvement of Patients in the Key Decision Milestones During the Elaboration of Plain Language Summaries of Publications

2:35 PM - 3:05 PM

Plain language summaries (PLS) of peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations allow research authors and journal editors to reach a broader audience among patients, patient organisations, caregivers, and the general public. For Healthcare professionals (HCP), PLS can help generate dialogue, more focused communication with their patients, can help them in a world of information overload to get a quick overview and they can then deep-dive in the full publication. It can also support non-specialist physicians.

Patient involvement and engagement (PE) in the development of PLS is often restricted to later stages of development (e.g. the review process). The objective of a multi stakeholder working group with patient representatives, industry members, publishers, researchers, medical communication agencies and public officials involved in research bodies was to develop in a co-creation mode a practical how-to guide that describes the process of PLS creation and dissemination through a straightforward 6-step approach that ensures early patient engagement. While navigating this stepwise process, the user will be guided towards tailored PLS tools and examples, as well as a methodology to assess the importance of involving patients at each key milestone. The guidance can be used from planning through to the delivery of a PLS to encourage co-creation with the intended target audience.