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Abstract
Objectives Infographics have the potential to enhance knowledge translation and implementation of clinical practice guidelines at the point of care. They can provide a synoptic view of recommendations, their rationale and supporting evidence. They should be understandable and easy to use. Little evaluation of these infographics regarding user experience has taken place. We explored general practitioners’ experiences with five selected BMJ Rapid Recommendation infographics suited for primary care.
Methods An iterative, qualitative user testing design was applied on two consecutive groups of 10 general practitioners for five selected infographics. The physicians used the infographics before clinical encounters and we performed hybrid think-aloud interviews afterwards. 20 interviews were analysed using the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven.
Results Many clinicians reported that the infographics were simple and rewarding to use, time-efficient and easy to understand. They were perceived as innovative and their knowledge basis as trustworthy and supportive for decision-making. The interactive, expandable format was preferred over a static version as general practitioners focused mainly on the core message. Rapid access through the electronic health record was highly desirable. The main issues were about the use of complex scales and terminology. Understanding terminology related to evidence appraisal as well as the interpretation of statistics and unfamiliar scales remained difficult, despite the infographics.
Conclusions General practitioners perceive infographics as useful tools for guideline translation and implementation in primary care. They offer information in an enjoyable and user friendly format and are used mainly for rapid, tailored and just in time information retrieval. We recommend future infographic producers to provide information as concise as possible, carefully define the core message and explore ways to enhance the understandability of statistics and difficult concepts related to evidence appraisal.
Trial registration number MP011977.
- information technology
- protocols & guidelines
- decision making
- quality in health care
- medical education & training
- primary care
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. The data sets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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- information technology
- protocols & guidelines
- decision making
- quality in health care
- medical education & training
- primary care
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. The data sets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary Data
This web only file has been produced by the BMJ Publishing Group from an electronic file supplied by the author(s) and has not been edited for content.
Footnotes
Twitter @ThomasAgoritsas
Contributors BA, MVe, GEB, ND and TA were involved in the design of the study. PVB, NS, MVa, AV, NVDA, AH, CD, EO, WM and WS-T collected the data. PVB, CD, EO, WS-T and WM analysed the data and wrote the initial manuscript. PVB, BA, MVe, GEB, ND, WS-T and TA revised the manuscript. PVB wrote the final manuscript. MVe was responsible for the overall content as guarantor. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted. The lead author affirms that the manuscript is an honest, accurate and transparent account of the study being reported. No important aspects of the study have been omitted. Any discrepancies from the study as planned and registered have been explained.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests TA is co-leading the BMJ Rapid Recommendations, and TA and WS-T have co-designed all infographics. The other authors declare no other competing interests.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.