Most of the online patient education materials provided by eight nationally recognized ob.gyn. societies are written at levels above the readability guidelines set by the American Medical Association, National Institutes of Health, and Department of Health & Human Services, according to Fatimah Z. Fahimuddin, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, Fresno, and her associates.
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According to the AMA, NIH, and HHS, all patient education material should be written at or below a sixth-grade reading level.
In a study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology, the investigators analyzed the readability of 410 online patient education documents from the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the American Urogynecologic Society, the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, the Society of Gynecologic Oncology, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, and Voices for Pelvic Floor Disorders.
The mean Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score was 8.9 for the 69 obstetrics-related documents analyzed; for the 341 gynecology-related documents, the mean score was 8.7. The American Urogynecologic Society had the most readable documents, with a mean grade level score of 6.4; the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists had the least readable, with a mean grade level score of 12.7. For the other three readability scales utilized in the analysis, mean scores generally ranged in the 8th-12th grade reading levels.
“It is not surprising that writing patient education materials at an appropriate reading level is difficult. With readability scales utilizing syllable count, common words such as ‘menstruation,’ ‘uterus,’ and ‘contractions’ will lead to higher readability scores. Thus, higher reading levels in both specialties is seen and expected,” the investigators wrote. Measures such as the addition of glossaries to define words and visuals to illustrate complex procedures would be helpful for reading comprehension and have been used by other medical societies.
The study authors reported no conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Fahimuddin FZ et al. Obstet Gynecol. 2019;133:888-94.