title: Do evidence summaries increase policy-makers' use of evidence from systematic reviews: A systematic review protocol.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Systematic reviews are important for decision-makers. They offer many potential benefits but are often written in technical language, are too long, and do not contain contextual details which makes them hard to use for decision-making. There are many organizations that develop and disseminate derivative products, such as evidence summaries, from systematic reviews for different populations or subsets of decision-makers. This systematic review will assess the effectiveness of systematic review summaries on increasing policymakers' use of systematic review evidence and to identify the components or features of these summaries that are most effective.
  
  
  METHODS
  We will include studies of policy-makers at all levels as well as health-system managers. We will include studies examining any type of "evidence summary," "policy brief," or other products derived from systematic reviews that present evidence in a summarized form. The primary outcomes are the following: (1) use of systematic review summaries decision-making (e.g., self-reported use of the evidence in policy-making, decision-making) and (2) policy-maker understanding, knowledge, and/or beliefs (e.g., changes in knowledge scores about the topic included in the summary). We will conduct a systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), non-randomized controlled trials (NRCTs), controlled before-after studies (CBA), and interrupted time series (ITS) studies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of this review will inform the development of future systematic review summaries to ensure that systematic review evidence is accessible to and used by policy-makers making health-related decisions.
authors.affiliation: University of Split School of Medicine, Split, Croatia. jennifer.petkovic@uottawa.ca.|Bruyère Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. jennifer.petkovic@uottawa.ca.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Petkovic
authors.affiliation: Bruyère Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. vivian.welch@uottawa.ca.|Public Health and Preventive Medicine, School of Epidemiology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. vivian.welch@uottawa.ca.
authors.forename: Vivian
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Welch
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. tugwell.bb@uottawa.ca.|Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada. tugwell.bb@uottawa.ca.|Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. tugwell.bb@uottawa.ca.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tugwell
mesh_terms: D000288:Administrative Personnel; D003657:Decision Making; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D011050:Policy Making; D012107:Research Design; D012196:Review Literature as Topic; D000078202:Systematic Reviews as Topic