Knowledge mobilization activities to support decision-making by youth, parents, and adults using a systematic and living map of evidence and recommendations on COVID-19: protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic underlined that guidelines and recommendations must be made more accessible and more understandable to the general public, including adults, parents, and youth, to improve health outcomes. The objective of this study is to the public's (youth, parents, and adult populations) understanding, usability, satisfaction, intention to implement, and preference for different ways of presenting COVID-19 health recommendations derived from the COVID-19 Living Map of Recommendations and Gateway to Contextualization (herein referred to as the RecMap). Methods and Analysis This is a protocol for a mixed-methods study. We will conduct a pragmatic allocation-concealed, blinded superiority randomized controlled trial (RCT) in three populations: adults (21 years of age or older), parents (18 years or above and are a parent or legal guardian of a child under 18 years old), and youth (15 to 24 years old), with at least 240 participants in each population. The trial will consist of an online survey and optional one on one interview. Prior to initiating the RCT, all PLRs were refined with relevant stakeholder input. In each population group, the intervention arm will receive a PLR format while the control arm will receive the original recommendation format as originally published by the guideline organizations (herein referred to as Standard Language Version). Our primary outcome is understanding, and our secondary outcomes are accessibility and usability, satisfaction, intended behavior, and preference for the two recommendation formats. Each population's results will be analyzed separately. We will pool the results across populations using meta-analysis, and also explore potential interaction and subgroup effects within each population. At the end of each survey, participants will be invited to participate in a one-on-one semi-structured interview to explore reasons for their choices and learn for future research. All interviews will be analyzed using thematic analysis. Interpretation will be iterative as data coding proceeds. Ethics and Dissemination Through Clinical Trials Ontario (CTO), the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board has reviewed and approved this protocol (Project ID: 3856). The University of Alberta will also be submitting for ethics approval. All potential participants will be required to provide informed consent. The findings from this study will be disseminated through open-access publications in peer-reviewed journals. Strengths and limitations of this study {middle dot} We are following a mixed methods approach: randomized controlled trial and qualitative interviews. The qualitative results will supplement and help explain our quantitative findings. {middle dot} This protocol is reported in accordance with the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT), which enhances transparency and completeness. The trial uses previously validated outcomes from similar trials. This will strengthen the credibility of our results. {middle dot} Our study is testing an evaluated PLR format, which makes our intervention stronger, and is recruiting internationally, which ensures the inclusion of a diverse population. {middle dot} Recruitment will take place online using social media, and data will be collected using an online survey. This allows for self-selection and limits accessibility to those who have no or limited digital access, which in turn limits generalizability. {middle dot} While the recommendations are offered in multiple languages through the RecMap, the study is only testing English Plain Language Recommendations.