Asthma information: can it be understood?

Asthma is an important public health problem in Australia on account of its prevalence, its under-recognition and inadequate self-management by many of those with the condition. There is a need for the development and dissemination of relevant and intelligible asthma education materials. However, a large proportion of written health education materials may not be understood by the people who are exposed to them. This study examined the comprehensibility of a variety of asthma education materials. The results suggest that most opportunities for asthma education are lost on a general audience—they are written at a reading age well above that of the general community. Only two pieces of asthma material had similar FOG reading age scores to a typical Sydney newspaper. All the other asthma materials were at least two reading grades higher. Non-parametric analysis suggested that these differences were all significant at the P< 0.01 level, even with the small sample size used (n = 10 observations per piece). It is recommended that careful attention be given to readability in the preparation of future asthma materials. The importance of readability assessment for other written health education materials is stressed, or valuable opportunities for community education will be wasted.