Patient-oriented online resources in pediatric surgery: Are we failing the readability test?
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Read the article on jpedsurg.org ↗Article · Jan 2020 · 1 min read
In brief
In brief
Study evaluating 195 patient-oriented resources from 30 US children's hospitals found that 98% were written above the recommended sixth-grade reading level, with larger hospitals producing content at even higher grade levels. Findings highlight a significant gap between current pediatric surgery patient education materials and health literacy best practices.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Background
The study aim was to evaluate the readability of patient-oriented resources in pediatric surgery from children's hospitals in the US.
Methods
The websites of 30 children's hospitals were evaluated for information on 10 common pediatric surgical procedures. Hospitals of varying characteristics including bed number, geographic location and ACS Children's Surgery Verification (CSV) were selected for the study. Readability scores were calculated using validated algorithms, and text was assigned an overall grade level.
Results
Of 195 patient-oriented resources identified, only three (2%) were written at or below the recommended sixth grade level. Larger hospitals provided patient information at a higher grade level than medium and smaller sized centers (10.7 vs 9.3 vs 9.0 respectively, p