Have you found the thought of reading research reports daunting; or get lost in the medical jargon?
For the last few months, the British Journal of Dermatology (BJD) has been trialling a new initiative of plain language summaries of research papers, which is aimed at lay reader.
The aim is to open up important research to patients who might otherwise be deterred by medical terms and inscrutable language. It is also hoped that they will provide a useful resource for journalists wishing to publicise breaking research.
Each summary is approximately 250 words, highlighting the key points of the research, in clear language that is easy to understand without being patronising. The summaries seek to provide a ‘taster’ of the article that presents the objectives and key findings of the study, allowing people to decide if the full article will be of interest to them. Several of the studies so far have concerned psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.
You can see the summaries (and all the previous months' summaries) in the online edition of the journal.
To access the summaries go to www.brjdermatol.org and the use the search facility by typing 'plain language summaries' and select 'in this journal' (rather than 'in this issue').
If you are a social media user, you can look at the latest summaries @HealthySkin4All and scroll down to see the journal Tweets.
Feedback is important and welcome – please take a minute to answer one very simple question here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BJD-Summaries.
About the BJD
The British Journal of Dermatology is one of the top dermatology journals in the world, and publishes papers on all aspects of the biology and pathology of the skin. Originally the Journal, founded in 1888, was devoted almost exclusively to the interests of the dermatologist in clinical practice. However, the rapid development, since the 1950s, of research on the physiology and experimental pathology of the skin has been reflected in the contents of the Journal, which now provides a vehicle for the publication of both experimental and clinical ethical research and serves equally the laboratory worker and the clinician.