Most American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Online Patient Education Material Exceeds Average Patient Reading Level
Background Advancing health literacy has the potential to improve patient outcomes. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) online patient education materials serve as a tool to improve health literacy for orthopaedic patients; however, it is unknown whether the materials currently meet...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | Clinical orthopaedics and related research 2015-04, Vol.473 (4), p.1181-1186 |
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| container_title | Clinical orthopaedics and related research |
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| creator | Eltorai, Adam E. M. Sharma, Pranav Wang, Jing Daniels, Alan H. |
| description | Background
Advancing health literacy has the potential to improve patient outcomes. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) online patient education materials serve as a tool to improve health literacy for orthopaedic patients; however, it is unknown whether the materials currently meet the National Institutes of Health/American Medical Association’s recommended sixth grade readability guidelines for health information or the mean US adult reading level of eighth grade.
Questions/purposes
The purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate the mean grade level readability of online AAOS patient education materials; and (2) to determine what proportion of the online materials exceeded recommended (sixth grade) and mean US (eighth grade) reading level.
Methods
Reading grade levels for 99.6% (260 of 261) of the online patient education entries from the AAOS were analyzed using the Flesch-Kincaid formula built into Microsoft Word software.
Results
Mean grade level readability of the AAOS patient education materials was 9.2 (SD ± 1.6). Two hundred fifty-one of the 260 articles (97%) had a readability score above the sixth grade level. The readability of the AAOS articles exceeded the sixth grade level by an average of 3.2 grade levels. Of the 260 articles, 210 (81%) had a readability score above the eighth grade level, which is the average reading level of US adults.
Conclusions
Most of the online patient education materials from the AAOS had readability levels that are far too advanced for many patients to comprehend. Efforts to adjust the readability of online education materials to the needs of the audience may improve the health literacy of orthopaedic patients. Patient education materials can be made more comprehensible through use of simpler terms, shorter sentences, and the addition of pictures. More broadly, all health websites, not just those of the AAOS, should aspire to be comprehensible to the typical reader. |
| doi_str_mv | 10.1007/s11999-014-4071-2 |
| format | Article |
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Advancing health literacy has the potential to improve patient outcomes. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) online patient education materials serve as a tool to improve health literacy for orthopaedic patients; however, it is unknown whether the materials currently meet the National Institutes of Health/American Medical Association’s recommended sixth grade readability guidelines for health information or the mean US adult reading level of eighth grade.
Questions/purposes
The purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate the mean grade level readability of online AAOS patient education materials; and (2) to determine what proportion of the online materials exceeded recommended (sixth grade) and mean US (eighth grade) reading level.
Methods
Reading grade levels for 99.6% (260 of 261) of the online patient education entries from the AAOS were analyzed using the Flesch-Kincaid formula built into Microsoft Word software.
Results
Mean grade level readability of the AAOS patient education materials was 9.2 (SD ± 1.6). Two hundred fifty-one of the 260 articles (97%) had a readability score above the sixth grade level. The readability of the AAOS articles exceeded the sixth grade level by an average of 3.2 grade levels. Of the 260 articles, 210 (81%) had a readability score above the eighth grade level, which is the average reading level of US adults.
Conclusions
Most of the online patient education materials from the AAOS had readability levels that are far too advanced for many patients to comprehend. Efforts to adjust the readability of online education materials to the needs of the audience may improve the health literacy of orthopaedic patients. Patient education materials can be made more comprehensible through use of simpler terms, shorter sentences, and the addition of pictures. More broadly, all health websites, not just those of the AAOS, should aspire to be comprehensible to the typical reader.</description><identifier>ISSN: 0009-921X</identifier><identifier>EISSN: 1528-1132</identifier><identifier>DOI: 10.1007/s11999-014-4071-2</identifier><identifier>PMID: 25475715</identifier><language>eng</language><publisher>Boston: Springer US</publisher><subject>Adult ; Clinical Research ; Conservative Orthopedics ; Consumer Health Information ; Health Literacy ; Humans ; Internet ; Medicine ; Medicine & Public Health ; Orthopedics ; Patient Education as Topic ; Reading ; Societies, Medical ; Sports Medicine ; Surgery ; Surgical Orthopedics ; United States</subject><ispartof>Clinical orthopaedics and related research, 2015-04, Vol.473 (4), p.1181-1186</ispartof><rights>The Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons® 2014</rights><rights>The Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons 2015</rights><lds50>peer_reviewed</lds50><oa>free_for_read</oa><woscitedreferencessubscribed>false</woscitedreferencessubscribed><citedby>FETCH-LOGICAL-c540t-5b6a76abbccfe311348367bc474b7eea9eab9d8ca3a220bf1b447b75f689b4d63</citedby><cites>FETCH-LOGICAL-c540t-5b6a76abbccfe311348367bc474b7eea9eab9d8ca3a220bf1b447b75f689b4d63</cites></display><links><openurl>$$Topenurl_article</openurl><openurlfulltext>$$Topenurlfull_article</openurlfulltext><thumbnail>$$Tsyndetics_thumb_exl</thumbnail><linktopdf>$$Uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4353543/pdf/$$EPDF$$P50$$Gpubmedcentral$$H</linktopdf><linktohtml>$$Uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4353543/$$EHTML$$P50$$Gpubmedcentral$$H</linktohtml><link.rule.ids>230,314,723,776,780,881,27901,27902,41464,42533,51294,53766,53768</link.rule.ids><backlink>$$Uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25475715$$D View this record in MEDLINE/PubMed$$Hfree_for_read</backlink></links><search><creatorcontrib>Eltorai, Adam E. M.</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Sharma, Pranav</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Wang, Jing</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Daniels, Alan H.</creatorcontrib><title>Most American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Online Patient Education Material Exceeds Average Patient Reading Level</title><title>Clinical orthopaedics and related research</title><addtitle>Clin Orthop Relat Res</addtitle><addtitle>Clin Orthop Relat Res</addtitle><description>Background
Advancing health literacy has the potential to improve patient outcomes. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) online patient education materials serve as a tool to improve health literacy for orthopaedic patients; however, it is unknown whether the materials currently meet the National Institutes of Health/American Medical Association’s recommended sixth grade readability guidelines for health information or the mean US adult reading level of eighth grade.
Questions/purposes
The purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate the mean grade level readability of online AAOS patient education materials; and (2) to determine what proportion of the online materials exceeded recommended (sixth grade) and mean US (eighth grade) reading level.
Methods
Reading grade levels for 99.6% (260 of 261) of the online patient education entries from the AAOS were analyzed using the Flesch-Kincaid formula built into Microsoft Word software.
Results
Mean grade level readability of the AAOS patient education materials was 9.2 (SD ± 1.6). Two hundred fifty-one of the 260 articles (97%) had a readability score above the sixth grade level. The readability of the AAOS articles exceeded the sixth grade level by an average of 3.2 grade levels. Of the 260 articles, 210 (81%) had a readability score above the eighth grade level, which is the average reading level of US adults.
Conclusions
Most of the online patient education materials from the AAOS had readability levels that are far too advanced for many patients to comprehend. Efforts to adjust the readability of online education materials to the needs of the audience may improve the health literacy of orthopaedic patients. Patient education materials can be made more comprehensible through use of simpler terms, shorter sentences, and the addition of pictures. More broadly, all health websites, not just those of the AAOS, should aspire to be comprehensible to the typical reader.</description><subject>Adult</subject><subject>Clinical Research</subject><subject>Conservative Orthopedics</subject><subject>Consumer Health Information</subject><subject>Health Literacy</subject><subject>Humans</subject><subject>Internet</subject><subject>Medicine</subject><subject>Medicine & Public Health</subject><subject>Orthopedics</subject><subject>Patient Education as Topic</subject><subject>Reading</subject><subject>Societies, Medical</subject><subject>Sports Medicine</subject><subject>Surgery</subject><subject>Surgical Orthopedics</subject><subject>United States</subject><issn>0009-921X</issn><issn>1528-1132</issn><fulltext>true</fulltext><rsrctype>article</rsrctype><creationdate>2015</creationdate><recordtype>article</recordtype><sourceid>EIF</sourceid><sourceid>BENPR</sourceid><recordid>eNp1kcuKFDEUhoMoTjv6AG4k4MZNaa6VykZohvYCPbR4AXchSZ2qqaE6aZOqZmbna_h6PolpehxHwVUSzne-nMOP0FNKXlJC1KtMqda6IlRUgihasXtoQSVrKko5u48WhBBdaUa_nqBHOV-WJxeSPUQnTAolFZULdHUe84SXW0iDtwEvvW1he41jhzdpuog7C-3g8ac59RBD_vn9B96EcQiAP9hpgDDhVTv7co0Bn9upWOyIV1ceoM14uYdk-z_oR7DtEHq8hj2Mj9GDzo4Zntycp-jLm9Xns3fVevP2_dlyXXkpyFRJV1tVW-e874CXvUTDa-W8UMIpAKvBOt023nLLGHEddUIop2RXN9qJtuan6PXRu5vdFlpfBkl2NLs0bG26NtEO5u9KGC5MH_dGcMml4EXw4kaQ4rcZ8mS2Q_YwjjZAnLOhdU05Z1qrgj7_B72McwplvQNFmkY3zUFIj5RPMecE3e0wlJhDruaYqym5mkOuhpWeZ3e3uO34HWQB2BHIpRR6SHe-_q_1F_EasQQ</recordid><startdate>20150401</startdate><enddate>20150401</enddate><creator>Eltorai, Adam E. M.</creator><creator>Sharma, Pranav</creator><creator>Wang, Jing</creator><creator>Daniels, Alan H.</creator><general>Springer US</general><general>Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Ovid Technologies</general><scope>CGR</scope><scope>CUY</scope><scope>CVF</scope><scope>ECM</scope><scope>EIF</scope><scope>NPM</scope><scope>AAYXX</scope><scope>CITATION</scope><scope>3V.</scope><scope>7QP</scope><scope>7RV</scope><scope>7T5</scope><scope>7X7</scope><scope>7XB</scope><scope>88E</scope><scope>8AO</scope><scope>8FI</scope><scope>8FJ</scope><scope>8FK</scope><scope>ABUWG</scope><scope>AFKRA</scope><scope>BENPR</scope><scope>CCPQU</scope><scope>FYUFA</scope><scope>GHDGH</scope><scope>H94</scope><scope>K9.</scope><scope>KB0</scope><scope>M0S</scope><scope>M1P</scope><scope>NAPCQ</scope><scope>PQEST</scope><scope>PQQKQ</scope><scope>PQUKI</scope><scope>PRINS</scope><scope>7X8</scope><scope>5PM</scope></search><sort><creationdate>20150401</creationdate><title>Most American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Online Patient Education Material Exceeds Average Patient Reading Level</title><author>Eltorai, Adam E. M. ; Sharma, Pranav ; Wang, Jing ; Daniels, Alan H.</author></sort><facets><frbrtype>5</frbrtype><frbrgroupid>cdi_FETCH-LOGICAL-c540t-5b6a76abbccfe311348367bc474b7eea9eab9d8ca3a220bf1b447b75f689b4d63</frbrgroupid><rsrctype>articles</rsrctype><prefilter>articles</prefilter><language>eng</language><creationdate>2015</creationdate><topic>Adult</topic><topic>Clinical Research</topic><topic>Conservative Orthopedics</topic><topic>Consumer Health Information</topic><topic>Health Literacy</topic><topic>Humans</topic><topic>Internet</topic><topic>Medicine</topic><topic>Medicine & Public Health</topic><topic>Orthopedics</topic><topic>Patient Education as Topic</topic><topic>Reading</topic><topic>Societies, Medical</topic><topic>Sports Medicine</topic><topic>Surgery</topic><topic>Surgical Orthopedics</topic><topic>United States</topic><toplevel>peer_reviewed</toplevel><toplevel>online_resources</toplevel><creatorcontrib>Eltorai, Adam E. M.</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Sharma, Pranav</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Wang, Jing</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Daniels, Alan H.</creatorcontrib><collection>Medline</collection><collection>MEDLINE</collection><collection>MEDLINE (Ovid)</collection><collection>MEDLINE</collection><collection>MEDLINE</collection><collection>PubMed</collection><collection>CrossRef</collection><collection>ProQuest Central (Corporate)</collection><collection>Calcium & Calcified Tissue Abstracts</collection><collection>Nursing & Allied Health Database</collection><collection>Immunology Abstracts</collection><collection>Health & Medical Collection</collection><collection>ProQuest Central (purchase pre-March 2016)</collection><collection>Medical Database (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>ProQuest Pharma Collection</collection><collection>Hospital Premium Collection</collection><collection>Hospital Premium Collection (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>ProQuest Central (Alumni) (purchase pre-March 2016)</collection><collection>ProQuest Central (Alumni)</collection><collection>ProQuest Central UK/Ireland</collection><collection>ProQuest Central</collection><collection>ProQuest One Community College</collection><collection>Health Research Premium Collection</collection><collection>Health Research Premium Collection (Alumni)</collection><collection>AIDS and Cancer Research Abstracts</collection><collection>ProQuest Health & Medical Complete (Alumni)</collection><collection>Nursing & Allied Health Database (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>Health & Medical Collection (Alumni Edition)</collection><collection>PML(ProQuest Medical Library)</collection><collection>Nursing & Allied Health Premium</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic Eastern Edition (DO NOT USE)</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic</collection><collection>ProQuest One Academic UKI Edition</collection><collection>ProQuest Central China</collection><collection>MEDLINE - Academic</collection><collection>PubMed Central (Full Participant titles)</collection><jtitle>Clinical orthopaedics and related research</jtitle></facets><delivery><delcategory>Remote Search Resource</delcategory><fulltext>fulltext</fulltext></delivery><addata><au>Eltorai, Adam E. M.</au><au>Sharma, Pranav</au><au>Wang, Jing</au><au>Daniels, Alan H.</au><format>journal</format><genre>article</genre><ristype>JOUR</ristype><atitle>Most American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Online Patient Education Material Exceeds Average Patient Reading Level</atitle><jtitle>Clinical orthopaedics and related research</jtitle><stitle>Clin Orthop Relat Res</stitle><addtitle>Clin Orthop Relat Res</addtitle><date>2015-04-01</date><risdate>2015</risdate><volume>473</volume><issue>4</issue><spage>1181</spage><epage>1186</epage><pages>1181-1186</pages><issn>0009-921X</issn><eissn>1528-1132</eissn><abstract>Background
Advancing health literacy has the potential to improve patient outcomes. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) online patient education materials serve as a tool to improve health literacy for orthopaedic patients; however, it is unknown whether the materials currently meet the National Institutes of Health/American Medical Association’s recommended sixth grade readability guidelines for health information or the mean US adult reading level of eighth grade.
Questions/purposes
The purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate the mean grade level readability of online AAOS patient education materials; and (2) to determine what proportion of the online materials exceeded recommended (sixth grade) and mean US (eighth grade) reading level.
Methods
Reading grade levels for 99.6% (260 of 261) of the online patient education entries from the AAOS were analyzed using the Flesch-Kincaid formula built into Microsoft Word software.
Results
Mean grade level readability of the AAOS patient education materials was 9.2 (SD ± 1.6). Two hundred fifty-one of the 260 articles (97%) had a readability score above the sixth grade level. The readability of the AAOS articles exceeded the sixth grade level by an average of 3.2 grade levels. Of the 260 articles, 210 (81%) had a readability score above the eighth grade level, which is the average reading level of US adults.
Conclusions
Most of the online patient education materials from the AAOS had readability levels that are far too advanced for many patients to comprehend. Efforts to adjust the readability of online education materials to the needs of the audience may improve the health literacy of orthopaedic patients. Patient education materials can be made more comprehensible through use of simpler terms, shorter sentences, and the addition of pictures. More broadly, all health websites, not just those of the AAOS, should aspire to be comprehensible to the typical reader.</abstract><cop>Boston</cop><pub>Springer US</pub><pmid>25475715</pmid><doi>10.1007/s11999-014-4071-2</doi><tpages>6</tpages><oa>free_for_read</oa></addata></record> |
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| source | MEDLINE; SpringerLink; PubMed Central; EZB Electronic Journals Library |
| subjects | Adult Clinical Research Conservative Orthopedics Consumer Health Information Health Literacy Humans Internet Medicine Medicine & Public Health Orthopedics Patient Education as Topic Reading Societies, Medical Sports Medicine Surgery Surgical Orthopedics United States |
| title | Most American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Online Patient Education Material Exceeds Average Patient Reading Level |
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