Sheppard Evan D, Hyde Zane, Florence Mason N, McGwin Gerald, Kirchner John S, Ponce Brent A
Division of Orthopaedics, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, Trussville, AL, USA.
Division of Orthopaedics, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, Trussville, AL, USA
Foot Ankle Int. 2014 Dec;35(12):1282-6. doi: 10.1177/1071100714550650. Epub 2014 Sep 19.
Previous studies have shown the need for improving the readability of many patient education materials to increase patient comprehension. This study's purpose was to determine the readability of foot and ankle patient education materials and to determine the extent readability can be improved. We hypothesized that the reading levels would be above the recommended guidelines and that decreasing the sentence length would also decrease the reading level of these patient educational materials.
Patient education materials from online public sources were collected. The readability of these articles was assessed by a readability software program. The detailed instructions provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were then used as a guideline for performing edits to help improve the readability of selected articles. The most quantitative guideline, lowering all sentences to less than 15 words, was chosen to show the effect of following the NIH recommendations.
The reading levels of the sampled articles were above the sixth to seventh grade recommendations of the NIH. The MedlinePlus website, which is a part of the NIH website, had the lowest reading level (8.1). The articles edited had an average reduction of 1.41 grade levels, with the lowest reduction in the Medline articles of 0.65.
Providing detailed instructions to the authors writing these patient education articles and implementing editing techniques based on previous recommendations could lead to an improvement in the readability of patient education materials.
This study provides authors of patient education materials with simple editing techniques that will allow for the improvement in the readability of online patient educational materials. The improvement in readability will provide patients with more comprehendible education materials that can strengthen patient awareness of medical problems and treatments.
以往研究表明，需要提高许多患者教育材料的可读性，以增强患者的理解能力。本研究的目的是确定足踝部患者教育材料的可读性，并确定可读性能够提高的程度。我们假设阅读水平会高于推荐指南，并且缩短句子长度也会降低这些患者教育材料的阅读水平。
收集来自在线公共资源的患者教育材料。通过一个可读性软件程序评估这些文章的可读性。然后将美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）提供的详细说明用作进行编辑的指导方针，以帮助提高所选文章的可读性。选择最具量化性的指导方针，即将所有句子缩短至少于15个单词，以显示遵循NIH建议的效果。
抽样文章的阅读水平高于NIH推荐的六年级至七年级水平。作为NIH网站一部分的MedlinePlus网站的阅读水平最低（8.1）。经过编辑的文章平均阅读水平降低了1.41个年级，其中Medline文章降低最少，为0.65个年级。
向撰写这些患者教育文章的作者提供详细说明，并根据先前的建议实施编辑技巧，可能会提高患者教育材料的可读性。
本研究为患者教育材料的作者提供了简单的编辑技巧，这将有助于提高在线患者教育材料的可读性。可读性的提高将为患者提供更易于理解的教育材料，从而增强患者对医疗问题和治疗方法的认识。
