Readability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials

Background: Health literacy, a recently determined construct plays an important role in how individuals are able to manage their health. A useful approach for the assessment of health literacy is to measure the comprehension of available patient education materials (PEMs).Objective: We aimed at asse...

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Autores principales:	Pálma Szabó, Éva Bíró, Karolina Kósa
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:	health literacy comprehension patient education healthcare workers readability index Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/18e92dab64684f2eb26c4e31875ded8b
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:18e92dab64684f2eb26c4e31875ded8b2021-12-01T16:04:07ZReadability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials2296-256510.3389/fpubh.2021.725840https://doaj.org/article/18e92dab64684f2eb26c4e31875ded8b2021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.725840/fullhttps://doaj.org/toc/2296-2565Background: Health literacy, a recently determined construct plays an important role in how individuals are able to manage their health. A useful approach for the assessment of health literacy is to measure the comprehension of available patient education materials (PEMs).Objective: We aimed at assessing the usefulness of PEMS available in Hungarian by testing comprehension of selected PEMs in different groups of users.Methods: Comprehension of patient education materials in the domain of healthcare was tested by selecting PEMs and creating questions based on their text in 3 dimensions of health literacy: understand, process/appraise, apply/use. Twenty questions were created that could be answered without pre-existing knowledge by reading the appropriate text taken from PEMs. Comprehension was examined in four groups: laypersons, non-professional healthcare workers, 1st year healthcare students, and 5th year medical students. Readability indices were calculated for the same texts to which questions were created.Results: Laypersons answered <50% of the PEMs-based questions correctly. Non-professional healthcare workers performed better with 57% of right answers but significantly worse than healthcare students or medical students. Those with at least high school qualification (maturity exam) showed significantly higher comprehension compared to those with lower educational attainment. Persons in good or very good health also had significantly better comprehension than those in less favorable health. All readability indices showed that comprehension of the tested PEMs required at least 10 years of schooling or more. Therefore, these PEMS are difficult to understand for persons with less than high school level of education.Conclusion: Rephrasing of the investigated patient educational materials would be recommended so that they better fit the educational attainment of the Hungarian population. Evaluation of the readability and comprehensibility of other PEMs also seems warranted.Pálma SzabóPálma SzabóÉva BíróKarolina KósaFrontiers Media S.A.articlehealth literacycomprehensionpatient educationhealthcare workersreadability indexPublic aspects of medicineRA1-1270ENFrontiers in Public Health, Vol 9 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	health literacy comprehension patient education healthcare workers readability index Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270
spellingShingle	health literacy comprehension patient education healthcare workers readability index Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 Pálma Szabó Pálma Szabó Éva Bíró Karolina Kósa Readability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials
description	Background: Health literacy, a recently determined construct plays an important role in how individuals are able to manage their health. A useful approach for the assessment of health literacy is to measure the comprehension of available patient education materials (PEMs).Objective: We aimed at assessing the usefulness of PEMS available in Hungarian by testing comprehension of selected PEMs in different groups of users.Methods: Comprehension of patient education materials in the domain of healthcare was tested by selecting PEMs and creating questions based on their text in 3 dimensions of health literacy: understand, process/appraise, apply/use. Twenty questions were created that could be answered without pre-existing knowledge by reading the appropriate text taken from PEMs. Comprehension was examined in four groups: laypersons, non-professional healthcare workers, 1st year healthcare students, and 5th year medical students. Readability indices were calculated for the same texts to which questions were created.Results: Laypersons answered <50% of the PEMs-based questions correctly. Non-professional healthcare workers performed better with 57% of right answers but significantly worse than healthcare students or medical students. Those with at least high school qualification (maturity exam) showed significantly higher comprehension compared to those with lower educational attainment. Persons in good or very good health also had significantly better comprehension than those in less favorable health. All readability indices showed that comprehension of the tested PEMs required at least 10 years of schooling or more. Therefore, these PEMS are difficult to understand for persons with less than high school level of education.Conclusion: Rephrasing of the investigated patient educational materials would be recommended so that they better fit the educational attainment of the Hungarian population. Evaluation of the readability and comprehensibility of other PEMs also seems warranted.
format	article
author	Pálma Szabó Pálma Szabó Éva Bíró Karolina Kósa
author_facet	Pálma Szabó Pálma Szabó Éva Bíró Karolina Kósa
author_sort	Pálma Szabó
title	Readability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials
title_short	Readability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials
title_full	Readability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials
title_fullStr	Readability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials
title_full_unstemmed	Readability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials
title_sort	readability and comprehension of printed patient education materials
publisher	Frontiers Media S.A.
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/18e92dab64684f2eb26c4e31875ded8b
work_keys_str_mv	AT palmaszabo readabilityandcomprehensionofprintedpatienteducationmaterials AT palmaszabo readabilityandcomprehensionofprintedpatienteducationmaterials AT evabiro readabilityandcomprehensionofprintedpatienteducationmaterials AT karolinakosa readabilityandcomprehensionofprintedpatienteducationmaterials
_version_	1718404799129452544

Readability and Comprehension of Printed Patient Education Materials

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