Brown Emily, Skinner Megan, Ashley Stephanie, Reed Kate, Dixon Shannan DeLany
University of Maryland Genetic Counseling Program, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
J Genet Couns. 2016 Jun;25(3):454-60. doi: 10.1007/s10897-015-9890-0. Epub 2015 Sep 29.
Patient letters are a powerful tool that genetic counselors use to communicate with their patients. Patient letters are often sent to provide information on a new diagnosis, reiterate test results, and to serve as a permanent record of the visit. Patient letters, however, are only helpful if the patients can understand them. More than 50 % of the US population reads below a 9th grade reading level and over one-third of the population has low health literacy skills. In this study we evaluate the readability of genetic counseling patient letters by assessing reading level, image use, and terminology use. One hundred forty-nine genetic counselors participated in the survey and of these, 79 submitted a sample patient letter. Analyses of the letters revealed a mean reading level of 10.93. On average, 6 genetic terms were included in each letter, and only 25 % of these terms were defined. Analyses of survey responses revealed over 75 % of the genetic counselors did not include images in their patient letters. These results indicate there is room for improvement in order to make genetic counseling patient letters more accessible to the general population.
患者信函是遗传咨询师与患者沟通的有力工具。发送患者信函通常是为了提供关于新诊断的信息、重申检测结果，并作为就诊的永久记录。然而，只有患者能够理解，患者信函才会有帮助。超过50%的美国人口阅读水平低于九年级，超过三分之一的人口健康素养技能较低。在本研究中，我们通过评估阅读水平、图像使用和术语使用来评估遗传咨询患者信函的可读性。149名遗传咨询师参与了调查，其中79人提交了一份患者信函样本。对这些信函的分析显示平均阅读水平为10.93。每封信函平均包含6个遗传学术语，其中只有25%的术语有定义。对调查回复的分析显示，超过75%的遗传咨询师在他们的患者信函中没有使用图像。这些结果表明，为了使遗传咨询患者信函更容易被普通人群理解，仍有改进的空间。
