Wong Kevin, Levi Jessica R
1 Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2017 Jan;156(1):96-102. doi: 10.1177/0194599816674711. Epub 2016 Oct 25.
Objective Previous studies have shown that patient education materials published by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation may be too difficult for the average reader to understand. The purpose of this study was to determine if current educational materials show improvements in readability. Study Design Cross-sectional analysis. Setting The Patient Health Information section of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation website. Subjects and Methods All patient education articles were extracted in plain text. Webpage navigation, references, author information, appointment information, acknowledgments, and disclaimers were removed. Follow-up editing was also performed to remove paragraph breaks, colons, semicolons, numbers, percentages, and bullets. Readability grade was calculated with the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Flesch Reading Ease, Gunning-Fog Index, Coleman-Liau Index, Automated Readability Index, and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook. Intra- and interobserver reliability were assessed. Results A total of 126 articles from 7 topics were analyzed. Readability levels across all 6 tools showed that the difficulty of patient education materials exceeded the abilities of an average American. As compared with previous studies, current educational materials by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation have shown a decrease in difficulty. Intra- and interobserver reliability were both excellent, with intraclass coefficients of 0.99 and 0.96, respectively. Conclusion Improvements in readability is an encouraging finding and one that is consistent with recent trends toward improved health literacy. Nevertheless, online patient educational material is still too difficult for the average reader. Revisions may be necessary for current materials to benefit a larger readership.
目的 以往研究表明，美国耳鼻咽喉-头颈外科学会基金会发布的患者教育材料对于普通读者而言可能太难理解。本研究的目的是确定当前的教育材料在可读性方面是否有所改进。研究设计 横断面分析。研究地点 美国耳鼻咽喉-头颈外科学会基金会网站的患者健康信息板块。研究对象与方法 所有患者教育文章均以纯文本形式提取。去除网页导航、参考文献、作者信息、预约信息、致谢和免责声明。还进行了后续编辑以去除段落分隔符、冒号、分号、数字、百分比和项目符号。使用弗莱什-金凯德年级水平、弗莱什阅读简易度、冈宁-福格指数、科尔曼-廖指数、自动可读性指数和简单费解度测量法计算可读性等级。评估观察者内和观察者间的可靠性。结果 共分析了来自7个主题的126篇文章。所有6种工具的可读性水平表明，患者教育材料的难度超出了普通美国人的能力。与以往研究相比，美国耳鼻咽喉-头颈外科学会基金会当前的教育材料难度有所降低。观察者内和观察者间的可靠性均极佳，组内相关系数分别为0.99和0.96。结论 可读性的提高是一个令人鼓舞的发现，并且与近期健康素养提高的趋势一致。然而，在线患者教育材料对于普通读者来说仍然太难。可能需要对当前材料进行修订，以使更多读者受益。
