Sand-Jecklin Kari
School of Nursing, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA.
J Community Health Nurs. 2007 Summer;24(2):119-29. doi: 10.1080/07370010701316254.
Most health-related literature is written above the reading ability of the lay audience; however, no studies to date have identified the impact of medical terms on readability of health education materials. The purpose of this study was to identify whether there was a change in calculated reading levels of patient education brochures after medical terms were removed from analysis passages. The reading levels of 5 patient education brochures were analyzed before and after removal of medical terms, using both the Fry and Simple Measure of Gobbledegook (SMOG) readability formulas. Results indicated that the reading levels for all brochures were significantly lower after removal of medical terminology, but they remained above the 5th to 6h grade level recommended by health education experts. Findings hold implications for healthcare professionals in relation to the development and evaluation of patient education materials.
大多数与健康相关的文献都是以普通读者的阅读能力之上的水平撰写的；然而，迄今为止尚无研究确定医学术语对健康教育材料可读性的影响。本研究的目的是确定在从分析段落中删除医学术语后，患者教育手册的计算阅读水平是否发生变化。使用Fry和“天书简测法”（SMOG）可读性公式，对5份患者教育手册在删除医学术语前后的阅读水平进行了分析。结果表明，删除医学术语后，所有手册的阅读水平均显著降低，但仍高于健康教育专家建议的五至六年级水平。这些发现对医疗保健专业人员在患者教育材料的开发和评估方面具有启示意义。
