The Complexity of Online Patient Education Materials About Interventional Neuroradiology Procedures Published by Major Academic Institutions

Introduction Health literacy is an independent predictor of population health status and is directly related to the readability of available patient education material. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Medical Association have recommended that patient education materials (PEMs) be written between a fourth- and a sixth-grade education level. The authors assessed the readability of online PEMs about neurointerventional procedures that have been published by several academic institutions across the US. Methods Online PEMs regarding five common neurointerventional procedures, including mechanical thrombectomy for large vessel occlusion, cerebral diagnostic angiography, carotid artery stenting, endovascular aneurysm embolization, and epidural steroid injection collected from the websites of 20 top institutions in Neurology and Neurosurgery. The materials were assessed via five readability scales and then were statistically analyzed and compared to non-institutional education websites (Wikipedia.com and WebMD.com). Results None of the PEMs were written at or below the NIH's recommended 6th-grade reading level. The average educational level required to comprehend the texts across all institutions, as assessed by the readability scales, was 10-11 grade level. Some materials required a college-level education or higher. Material from non-institutional websites had significantly lower readability scores compared to the 20 institutions. Conclusions Current PEMs related to neurointerventional procedures are not written at or below the NIH's recommended fourth- to sixth-grade education level. Given the complexity of those procedures, significant attention should be pointed toward an improvement in the available online materials.