Kher Akhil, Johnson Sandra, Griffith Robert
Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, Scranton, PA, USA.
Adv Prev Med. 2017;2017:9780317. doi: 10.1155/2017/9780317. Epub 2017 Jun 1.
Online health information is being used more ubiquitously by the general population. However, this information typically favors only a small percentage of readers, which can result in suboptimal medical outcomes for patients.
The readability of online patient education materials regarding the topic of congestive heart failure was assessed through six readability assessment tools.
The search phrase "congestive heart failure" was employed into the search engine Google. Out of the first 100 websites, only 70 were included attending to compliance with selection and exclusion criteria. These were then assessed through six readability assessment tools.
Only 5 out of 70 websites were within the limits of the recommended sixth-grade readability level. The mean readability scores were as follows: the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (9.79), Gunning-Fog Score (11.95), Coleman-Liau Index (15.17), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) index (11.39), and the Flesch Reading Ease (48.87).
Most of the analyzed websites were found to be above the sixth-grade readability level recommendations. Efforts need to be made to better tailor online patient education materials to the general population.
普通人群越来越普遍地使用在线健康信息。然而，这些信息通常仅惠及一小部分读者，这可能导致患者的医疗结果不理想。
通过六种可读性评估工具评估关于充血性心力衰竭主题的在线患者教育材料的可读性。
在搜索引擎谷歌中输入搜索短语“充血性心力衰竭”。在前100个网站中，只有70个符合选择和排除标准被纳入。然后通过六种可读性评估工具对这些网站进行评估。
70个网站中只有5个在推荐的六年级可读性水平范围内。平均可读性得分如下：弗莱施-金凯德年级水平（9.79）、冈宁-福格得分（11.95）、科尔曼-廖指数（15.17）、简化的难词测量（SMOG）指数（11.39）和弗莱施阅读简易度（48.87）。
发现大多数分析的网站高于六年级可读性水平建议。需要努力更好地为普通人群量身定制在线患者教育材料。
