Analyzing the Readability of Health Information Booklets on Cardiovascular Diseases

A low level of patient health literacy represents a major reason for worse prognosis or reduced therapy adherence. Health information booklets are a major tool for improving patient's health literacy. This paper presents a computer-based readability analysis of patient information booklets from...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStudies in health technology and informatics Vol. 253; p. 16
Main Authors Zowalla, Richard, Pobiruchin, Monika, Wiesner, Martin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Netherlands 2018
Subjects
Cardiovascular Diseases
Comprehension
Health Literacy
Humans
Internet
Patient Education as Topic
Reading
Readability
health literacy
patient education
heart diseases
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Summary:A low level of patient health literacy represents a major reason for worse prognosis or reduced therapy adherence. Health information booklets are a major tool for improving patient's health literacy. This paper presents a computer-based readability analysis of patient information booklets from the cardiovascular domain. The study relies on 34 English booklets mostly on heart disease, prevention and procedures. It compares five different, well-established readability instruments. On average, readers of the assessed booklets have to visit school at least until the 9th U.S. school grade when applying the Flesch-Kincaid formula. According to the Gunning-Fog metric, readers would have to attend school until the 11th grade. The presented study demonstrates the feasibility of a fully automated text processing tool-chain for patient information booklets. The results reveal that readability metrics should be carefully interpreted and only be interchanged with caution.
ISSN:0926-9630
DOI:10.3233/978-1-61499-896-9-16