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Paper or screen, mother tongue or English: which is better? A randomized trial
- Source :
- Scopus-Elsevier
- Publication Year :
- 2002
-
Abstract
- ContextTo compare family physicians' ability to retain information when reading a review article on paper vs on screen, and in their mother tongue vs in English.MethodsRandomized trial of 114 Scandinavian family physicians who read a review article in October or November 2000 from the Journal of Trauma for 10 minutes either on paper and in English, on screen and in English, on paper in their mother tongue, or on screen in their mother tongue. To assess comprehension, they immediately completed a questionnaire with 6 open questions about 13 key facts from the review article. Sum score was on a scale from 0 (no correct answers) to 13 points (all questions answered correctly).ResultsThere was no significant difference between readers of paper vs screen versions, with a median (interquartile range [IQR]) of 4 (2-6) vs 4 (2-5), respectively (P = .97). Physicians who read in their mother tongue scored significantly higher than those who read in English, with a median (IQR) of 4 (3-6) vs 3 (2-4) (P = .01).ConclusionThe medium (paper vs screen) did not influence the ability of family physicians to retain medical information. They best retained medical information when reading in their mother tongue.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
Paper
medicine.medical_specialty
media_common.quotation_subject
First language
MEDLINE
Multilingualism
law.invention
Cognition
Randomized controlled trial
law
Interquartile range
Reading (process)
medicine
Humans
media_common
Language arts
business.industry
General Medicine
Middle Aged
Translating
Clinical trial
Comprehension
Reading
Computer Terminals
Language Arts
Family medicine
Female
Periodicals as Topic
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00987484
- Volume :
- 287
- Issue :
- 21
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- JAMA
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d9284a8c9e21b89fc96c9b4e234a2826