Assessing an educational booklet for promotion of healthy lifestyles in sedentary adults with cardiometabolic risk factors.

OBJECTIVES

1. To evaluate and improve the suitability and readability of an educational booklet designed for use in an intervention aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles as a way to manage cardiometabolic risk factors in adults with low levels of physical activity and 2) to check its acceptability to real end users.

METHODS

A 7-phase methodology was used. The evaluation committee (9 experts, 6 potential end users) scored the booklet using the Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM) and health education material (HEM) questionnaires on two occasions (original and revised version). Acceptability was also assessed by 75 real end users after a lifestyle intervention.

RESULTS

The SAM and HEM scores of the revised booklet were respectively 10% (SD = 9%) and 10% (SD = 7%) higher than the original booklet scores. The revised version attained "superior" scoring in all questionnaires: SAM, 87% (SD = 8%); HEM, 3.5 (SD = 0.4) out of 4; Acceptability, 3.7 (SD = 0.4) out of 4.

CONCLUSIONS

The suitability and readability of an educational booklet-to promote a healthy lifestyle-were improved following a systematic peer-review evaluation prior to its use in an intervention.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Improving the suitability and readability of educational resources can have a positive impact on patient knowledge and awareness, and hence on intervention effectiveness.