Brief Reminders as Intervention for Greater Engagement of Cochrane Translators

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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The intervention will consist of reminders which will be send to the participants randomly via email, with aim to increase the frequency and amount of translated plain language summaries (PLS).

Detailed Description
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All study participants who accept participation in the study will be initially assigned 3 PLSs, and subsequently they will be assigned more PLSs when they translated the previous ones. Intervention group will receive one customized e-mail reminder two weeks after the PLS assignment if they do not translate it within two weeks. If they still do not translate the PLS, they will receive another customized e-mail reminder after every two weeks until they translate the PLS or until we reach maximum of 4 bi-weekly reminders (at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks and 8 weeks post-assignment) or until participants indicate that they are unable to translate it anymore. Text of the reminder that will be sent to the study participants is available in Supplementary file 1. The reminders will be customized for each PLS, and they will contain a name of the PLS indicated in the message. If the participants do not translate PLS within 2 months from PLS assignment, we will stop sending them reminders and we will consider them as dropouts. Control group will receive no intervention, i.e. standard procedure. Participants in the control group will receive PLSs for translation, in the frequency they indicated, and they will not receive any reminders. They will be assigned new PLSs once they translate the ones that were previously assigned. All PLSs will be translated in Memsource, a translation management tool that Cochrane plans to start using since March 2018 for managing translation of summaries. Participants will be followed 6 months from the moment of allocation.

Official Title
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Interventions for Increasing Volunteer Engagement in Knowledge Translation Activity of Translating Cochrane Plain Language Summaries: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Conditions
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Knowledge Translation

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Reminders


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: adults ≥18 years who volunteered to translate Cochrane PLSs within the Croatian translation project. Exclusion Criteria: none

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years
Maximum Age: 65 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Treatment
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Interventional Model Description: All study participants who accept participation in the study will be initially assigned 3 PLSs, and subsequently they will be assigned more PLSs when they translated the previous ones. Intervention group will receive one customized e-mail reminder two weeks after the PLS assignment if they do not translate it within two weeks. Control group will receive no intervention, i.e. standard procedure. Participants in the control group will receive PLSs for translation, in the frequency they indicated, and they will not receive any reminders. They will be assigned new PLSs once they translate the ones that were previously assigned.
Masking: Double


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Reminders<br>Reminders customized for each PLS, containing a name of the PLS indicated in the message. If the participants do not translate PLS within 2 months from PLS assignment, we will stop sending them reminders and we will consider them as dropouts. | Other: Reminders<br>* Personalized email which will aim for reminding of the translator about the PLSs on hold.<br>|
| No Intervention: Control group<br>Control group will receive no intervention, i.e. standard procedure. Participants in the control group will receive PLSs for translation, in the frequency they indicated, and they will not receive any reminders. They will be assigned new PLSs once they translate the ones that were previously assigned. | |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Number of translated PLSs within the 6 month follow-up | The number of translated PLSs will be scored in the six months period for a participant | 6 months | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Number of translated PLSs after 3 months of follow up | The number of translated PLSs will be scored in the three months period for a participant | 3 months | 
| Time to submitting translation | The investigators will note the time needed to submit translation | 6 months | 
| Satisfaction with participation in the translation project | Likert type scale from 1 to 10 (ranging from 1-completely unsatisfactory to 10-completely satisfactory) | 6 months | 
| Loss of participants | Loss of participants from the trial at final follow-up of 6 months, defined as participants' message that they wish to stop translating during the trial period, without later messages during the trial that they wish to engage in translation again. | 6 months |