title: Paper or screen, mother tongue or English: which is better? A randomized trial.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To 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.
  
  
  METHODS
  Randomized 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).
  
  
  RESULTS
  There 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).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The 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.
authors.affiliation: Journal of Norweigian Medical Association, Oslo, Norway. palgul@heltef.no
authors.forename: Pål
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gulbrandsen
authors.forename: Torben V
authors.initials: TV
authors.lastname: Schroeder
authors.forename: Josef
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Milerad
authors.forename: Magne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nylenna
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D016288:Computer Terminals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007803:Language Arts; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019303:Multilingualism; D010209:Paper; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D011932:Reading; D014175:Translating