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Educational interventions to improve people’s understanding of key concepts in assessing the effects of health interventions: a systematic review

Overview of attention for article published in Systematic Reviews, May 2018
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (93rd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (94th percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog
policy
1 policy source
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56 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages

Citations

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47 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
143 Mendeley
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Title
Educational interventions to improve people’s understanding of key concepts in assessing the effects of health interventions: a systematic review
Published in
Systematic Reviews, May 2018
DOI 10.1186/s13643-018-0719-4
Pubmed ID
Authors

Leila Cusack, Chris B. Del Mar, Iain Chalmers, Elizabeth Gibson, Tammy C. Hoffmann

Abstract

Health information is readily accessible but is of variable quality. General knowledge about how to assess whether claims about health interventions are trustworthy is not common, so people's health decisions can be ill-informed, unnecessarily costly and even unsafe. This review aims to identify and evaluate studies of educational interventions designed to improve people's understanding of key concepts for evaluating claims about the effects of health interventions. We searched multiple electronic databases and sources of grey literature. Inclusion criteria included all study types that included a comparison, any participants (except health professionals or health professional students) and educational interventions aimed at improving people's understanding of one or more of the key concepts considered necessary for assessing health intervention claims. Knowledge and/or understanding of concepts or skills relevant to evaluating health information were our primary outcome measures. Secondary outcomes included behaviour, confidence, attitude and satisfaction with the educational interventions. Two authors independently screened search results, assessed study eligibility and risk of bias and extracted data. Results were summarised using descriptive synthesis. Among 24 eligible studies, 14 were randomised trials and 10 used other study designs. There was heterogeneity across study participants, settings and educational intervention type, content and delivery. The risk of bias was high in at least one domain for all randomised studies. Most studies measured outcomes immediately after the educational intervention, with few measuring later. In most of the comparisons, measures of knowledge and skills were better among those who had received educational interventions than among controls, and some of these differences were statistically significant. The effects on secondary outcomes were inconsistent. Educational interventions to improve people's understanding of key concepts for evaluating health intervention claims can improve people's knowledge and skills, at least in the short term. Effects on confidence, attitude and behaviour are uncertain. Many of the studies were at moderate or greater risk of bias. Improvements in study quality, consistency of outcome measures and measures of longer-term effects are needed to improve confidence in estimates of the effects of educational interventions to improve people's understanding of key concepts for evaluating health intervention claims. PROSPERO CRD42016033103.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 56 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 143 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 143 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 15 10%
Student > Master 15 10%
Student > Bachelor 12 8%
Student > Ph. D. Student 10 7%
Lecturer 9 6%
Other 24 17%
Unknown 58 41%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 23 16%
Nursing and Health Professions 16 11%
Social Sciences 8 6%
Psychology 5 3%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 3%
Other 24 17%
Unknown 63 44%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 43. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 January 2019.
All research outputs
#897,212
of 24,088,270 outputs
Outputs from Systematic Reviews
#116
of 2,094 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#20,889
of 330,248 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Systematic Reviews
#3
of 39 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,088,270 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,094 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 330,248 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 39 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.