Strengths and Limitations
ACUTE BRONCHITIS
The pilot study was conducted online which had the advantages of reaching the participants quickly and the answers being promptly available in a digital format. A further strength of the study can be seen in blinding, randomization, and intention-to-treat analysis since these criteria demonstrate a high quality of evidence [In the study, only the example “Antibiotics for acute bronchitis” from the Martin Luther University fact box was used [All outcomes were obtained immediately after reading the fact boxes. It is not known whether knowledge would decrease in follow-up assessments.Participants with a low level of education were underrepresented in this study. The breaking point between the two education groups had been defined arbitrarily. Shifting the breaking point could produce different results. In addition, participants were assigned using randomization to presentation formats that were possibly not matching their individual preferences. This could have impacted their performances and might have biased the results.A limitation of the online survey was the fact that people without an internet connection and/or email address and/or without an internet-enabled device (terminal) were not able to take part in the study. It must also be assumed that older citizens could only be minimally represented by an online survey, as only half of those over 70 use the internet [