Information Capsule: A New Approach for Summarizing Medical Information.

Background: The diversities of medical information resources and health information needs in recent years have caused another form of summarization and abstract writing to appear in the information capsule (IC) versus various types of abstracts. The present study was conducted with the aim to analyze the current IC, giving a unique definition and a standard structure for the development of an IC, and how it can be represented and implemented.

Methods: This study was conducted in three phases in the form of a qualitative study. In the first phase, a library review study was done on the relevant websites and international databases, such as PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Sciences, Google Scholar, ProQuest, and Embase. In the second phase, the results of the previous stage were discussed with a panel of experts. In the third phase, a suggested frame for an IC was stated.

Results: A specific structure was suggested for IC so that, in addition to having parts of similar cases, they had extra parts. The suggested frame includes title, name of the IC writers and reviewers, question or goals, design or methods, setting, patient or community of the study, result, commentary, citation, topic, picture, and tag and can be used in different fields.

Conclusions: Due to the importance of IC in summarizing information, our suggested structure should be used in other fields and be subject to trial and error.