Spreading Cochrane press releases to lay people and Italian journalists

Background: Since 2003, the Mario Negri Institute, the Italian Cochrane Centre (ICC) and the scientific publishing company (Zadig), have developed “PartecipaSalute”, a national program to foster partnerships among patient organizations and healthcare professionals. The Italian translation of several Cochrane Reviews’ abstracts and plain language summaries are hosted in the “PartecipaSalute” website, with the objective to reduce users distance from evidence-based information. The Cochrane press releases are appealing for general audience, and therefore could represent a preferred tool for dissemination. Objectives: To spread the Cochrane press releases to lay people and journalists and explore their popularity in Italy. Methods: Since 2007, the ICC receives Cochrane press releases from the Wiley few days before the release of a new issue of the Cochrane Library. These are translated and adapted to the Italian setting, by researchers working on methodology and communication aspects. The press releases are then sent to a mailing list of 284 journalists and published on the PartecipaSalute portal. The access to this website section was monitored from 2007 to 2011 to explore the popularity among lay people visiting the portal. Monitoring of press coverage in a sample of journals is ongoing. Results: One hundred-ten press releases have been published and mailed to the journalists from January 2007 to April 2011. The median website visits per month were more than 28.600 (range 17.617-39.616). Data on the Cochrane press releases section and about press coverage will be provided. Conclusions: Preliminary data shows that the press coverage of CPRs is sensitive to hot media topics (i.e. vaccines, zinc for the common cold, acupuncture) . The impact of the CPRs will be evaluated.