We're very grateful to the authors who helped us develop and test BMJ pico, our abridged format for BMJ research articles in the print journal.

Here are the details of two surveys of authors about BMJ pico.

EDITORIAL NOTE: For a pdf version of this page, with accompanying table, follow this link.
For the results of our BMJ pico authors' survey, follow this link.
For the results of our submitting and published authors' survey, follow this link.

Title:

Authors’ and readers’ perceptions of BMJ pico: Two cross sectional surveys

Authors/reference/doi: 

Sara Schroter and Trish Groves

Correspondence to:

sschroter@bmj.com

Study question:

How do authors submitting research articles to the BMJ, some of them achieving publication, perceive BMJ pico, the new style of abridging research articles in the BMJ?

Summary answer:

Authors were generally very positive about the concept of BMJ pico and its ability to convey key aspects of the research study to general readers.

Participants and setting:

1) Random sample of corresponding authors who submitted a research paper to the BMJ in 2008 and a consecutive sample of authors who published research in the BMJ in 2008 2) consecutive sample of authors who published research in the BMJ in 2009 and prepared a BMJ pico during its the pilot phase.

Design:

Two cross sectional electronic surveys.

Primary outcome(s):

Authors’ perceptions of whether general readers will be more likely to read BMJ research in the print journal if it is in the BMJ pico format rather than the usual abridged format (ELPS) and whether the BMJ pico publishing model would affect their decisions to submit research to the BMJ in future.

Main results and the role of chance:

Response rate: 1) 103/458 (22%) submitting authors, 69/164 (42%) published authors and 2) 14/17 (82%) pico authors. 

 72% (124/173) submitting and published authors and 64% (9/14) pico authors said general readers would be more likely to read BMJ research in the print journal if it is in the BMJ pico format than the usual abridged format.

61% (106/173) and 57% (8/14) said that as an author this publishing model would make them more likely to submit to BMJ or make no difference to their decision, (submitting plus published authors and pico authors, respectively).

Bias, confounding and other reasons for caution:

Responder bias - authors may have been overly positive through concern at being identified. Those who responded may also have had stronger opinions than those who chose not to respond.

Generalisability to other populations:

We achieved low response rates in survey 1 among the submitting and published authors from 2008 that were typical of market research, but most of those in survey 2 responded. 

Study funding/potential competing interests:

We received no additional funding for this research.  SS regularly conducts surveys as part of her role as researcher in the BMJ Group.  Both SS and TG hope authors like BMJ pico, but this has not influenced their analysis of the data.