Putting plain language summaries into perspective

Abstract

Publication-associated plain language summaries are brief, jargon-free summaries of scientific publications. They are intended for a broad, non-expert audience to help maximize the accessibility of the publication. Plain language summaries are typically found alongside peer-reviewed publications or in supplementary materials and can be indexed in PubMed. In this narrative commentary, we present the perspectives of five day-to-day users of plain language summaries from different stakeholder groups, gained through semi-structured qualitative interviews about the users’ experiences with and opinions of plain language summaries.