Assessing the Comprehensibility and Trustworthiness of Online Tracheostomy Care Resources.

Tracheostomy is a surgical procedure to create an opening in the neck to insert a tube into the trachea to help a person breathe. Proper cleaning and care of the tracheostomy tube is vital to prevent infections. Patients frequently use the internet to learn about tracheostomy tube care before and after the procedure. To assess the readability and reliability of 50 websites providing patient information on tracheostomy tube care. The websites were evaluated using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Gunning Fog score (GF), DISCERN score, and JAMA benchmark criteria. The mean FKGL was 6.2, FRES was 61.9 and GF score was 7.2, indicating moderate overall readability. The reliability scores were average, too, with mean DISCERN and JAMA scores being 3.2 and 1.8, respectively. There is immense scope for improvement in the readability and reliability of online resources on tracheostomy tube care for patients to comprehend the information quickly.