In this study, an exploratory online survey was conducted to clarify points that have not been clarified so far in the medical illustration research field. If several illustrators make an illustration of the same information, does a match of intentions and techniques affect the impression or comprehension of the information? The aim is to further the utilization of medical illustration in actual practice (n=1104). First, we selected Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) as the medical condition about which information had to be disseminated. Then, we asked 32 art professionals to make six illustrations with three detail types (high, middle, and low) and two purposes (“getting interested” and “boosting comprehension”). Thereafter, we selected six different types of art professionals’ illustrations for the questionnaire to ask the participants about the intentions of the illustrations and comprehension of the content. We found that if the illustrator’s intentions and visual description techniques match with the recipients, the match of intentions could help generate interest in the content, and the match of visual description techniques could enhance the comprehension of the information.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Initials of the authors who received each award: MH Grant numbers awarded to each author: 20K20653 The full name of each funder: Grant-in-Aid for Exploratory Research, Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI). URL of each funder website: https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/ja/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-20K20653/ https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/index.html? The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The survey was approved by the Ethical Review Boards of Saitama Prefectural University (No. 20083).

I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals.

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I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

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I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.

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Data cannot be shared publicly because of including Illustrations drawn using analog techniques. Data are available from the Ethics Committee (contact via rinri@spu.ac.jp ) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data.