Abstract

Plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications are a means of sharing research with a broad range of audiences and may improve the transparency, accountability, accessibility, discoverability, and inclusivity of medical research. There is currently an ongoing, industry-wide effort to establish consensus on plain language summaries, and initiatives are already in place that provide detailed guidance on plain language best practice, co-creation methods, patient-focused content, graphic and digital considerations, and publisher-specific guidelines. However, there remains a need for a foundational set of recommendations that complement existing initiatives to outline the minimum steps needed to develop discoverable, plain language summaries that are trustworthy, credible, and of high quality. Here, we present the Open Pharma recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications. These recommendations were initially developed by the Open Pharma Accessibility workstream and were extensively reviewed and refined during an expert roundtable and a focused, public consultation. Open Pharma is a multi-sponsor collaboration of pharmaceutical companies, non-pharmaceutical funders, publishers, patients, academics, regulators, editors, and societies seeking to identify and drive positive changes in the publishing of pharmaceutical company-funded research. We recommend that plain language summaries should be in the style of an abstract, free of technical jargon, unbiased, non-promotional, peer reviewed, and easily accessed. Plain language summaries should also meet the technical requirements to be indexed in directories such as PubMed. Ultimately, these recommendations are intended to be a concise outline of a minimum standard that provides top-line guidance on plain language summaries for authors, medical writers, publishers, and research funders.

摘要

经同行评审的医学期刊出版物的简明语言摘要是与广泛的受众分享研究的一种手段，可以提高医学研究的透明度、问责制、可访问性、可发现性和包容性。目前，全行业正在努力就通俗语言摘要达成共识，并且已经采取了一些举措，为通俗语言最佳实践、共同创造方法、以患者为中心的内容、图形和数字考虑因素提供详细指导，以及特定于出版商的指南。然而，仍然需要一套基本的建议来补充现有的倡议，以概述开发可发现的、通俗易懂的、可信赖的、可信的和高质量的摘要所需的最少步骤。这里，我们为同行评审的医学期刊出版物的简明语言摘要提出了 Open Pharma 建议。这些建议最初由开放药品可及性工作流程制定，并在专家圆桌会议和有针对性的公众咨询期间进行了广泛审查和完善。Open Pharma 是制药公司、非制药资助者、出版商、患者、学者、监管机构、编辑和协会的多方赞助合作，旨在识别和推动制药公司资助的研究出版的积极变化。我们建议简单的语言摘要应该采用摘要的风格，没有技术术语，不偏不倚，不宣传，同行评审，并且易于访问。简明语言摘要还应满足在 PubMed 等目录中编入索引的技术要求。最终，这些建议旨在成为最低标准的简明大纲，为作者、医学作家、出版商和研究资助者提供关于简明语言摘要的顶级指导。