We surveyed authors of publications in high-impact psychiatry journals to assess the (1) proportion that disseminated results to study participants or others with lived experience, and, among those who disseminated, (2) methods (eg, email) and (3) tools (eg, plain-language summary) used.

Meta-research review.

PubMed search on 14 December 2022 and emails to study authors for information on dissemination.

Eligible studies collected primary human data and were published in psychiatry journals with 2021 impact factor ≥10.

Study information was extracted by one investigator and validated by a second investigator, with conflicts resolved by consensus, with a third investigator consulted as necessary. We emailed authors approximately 2 years post-publication to ensure sufficient time had passed to share results. We estimated the proportion of authors that may have disseminated results to participants or others with lived experience, assuming that non-respondents (1) did not disseminate, (2) were half as likely to disseminate as respondents or (3) disseminated in the same proportion as respondents.

Of 141 studies, 94 (67%) authors responded. Among respondents, 21 (22%) reported disseminating to study participants, and an additional 9 (10%) reported disseminating lay materials to people with lived experience (total of 30 studies, 32%). Overall, we estimated that 15% (95% CI 10% to 22%) to 23% (95% CI 17% to 30%) of authors may have disseminated results directly to study participants and 21% (95% CI 15% to 29%) to 32% (95% CI 25% to 40%) to participants or others with lived experience. Among the 30 that reported disseminating, the most common methods were sending mail or emails to study participants (17 studies, 57%) and posting on social media (15 studies, 50%). The most common tools were plain-language summaries (22 studies, 73%) and webinars or other meetings (15 studies, 50%).

Dissemination of results to participants in mental health research is uncommon. Funding agencies, ethics committees, journals and academic institutions should support dissemination.

To investigate if beliefs about medicines affect the time to the initiation of cardiovascular preventive medications during a 3 year follow-up period.

A questionnaire and register-based cohort study.

Primary care in Sweden, in which people 40, 50 and 60 years old underwent risk factor screening and individual health promotion within the Västerbotten intervention programme (VIP).

People at low/medium risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) according to the risk factor screening were included in the VIsualiZation of asymptomatic Atherosclerotic disease for optimum cardiovascular prevention—a population-based Pragmatic Randomised Open Blinded End-point trial (PROBE) nested in the Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIPVIZA), aiming at improved primary prevention of CVD. People participating in the VIPVIZA 3 year follow-up (n=3167 (89.7%)), receiving the Beliefs about medicines questionnaire (BMQ) (n=2314 (73.1%)) and with complete answers to at least one subscale in the BMQ general (n=2258 (97.6%)) were included. Moreover, only those 60 years old at baseline (n=2073 (58.7%)) and without antihypertensive and/or lipid-lowering drugs (n=1769 (50.1%)) 6 months prior to inclusion in the VIPVIZA trial were included. Accordingly, the final study population comprised 888 people without antihypertensive medicines and 1185 without lipid-lowering drugs, respectively.

The primary outcome was time to the binary event of initiating antihypertensives or lipid-lowering agents, identified within the time frame from inclusion in the VIPVIZA study until the study participants’ 3 year follow-up visit. General beliefs about medicines were assessed according to the BMQ. Cox proportional hazards models, adjusted for sex, were conducted to investigate primary outcome.

Participants with stronger general beliefs about medicines being overused had significantly longer time to initiation of antihypertensive drugs in the control group (HR 0.91; 95% CI 0.84 to 0.996) but not in the intervention group (HR 1.05; 95% CI 0.95 to 1.16). No significant associations were found between beliefs about medicines and initiation of lipid-lowering treatment.

A more negative perception of drugs being overused was significantly associated with delayed initiation of antihypertensive drug treatment. Our results suggest that the VIPVIZA intervention may overbridge negative perceptions and affect the initiation of antihypertensive medications in a positive manner.

NCT01849575 (date of registration: 8 May 2013).