A comparative analysis of minimally invasive and open spine surgery patient education resources

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title>Object</jats:title> <jats:p>The Internet has become a widespread source for disseminating health information to large numbers of people. Such is the case for spine surgery as well. Given the complexity of spinal surgeries, an important point to consider is whether these resources are easily read and understood by most Americans. The average national reading grade level has been estimated to be at about the 7th grade. In the present study the authors strove to assess the readability of open spine surgery resources and minimally invasive spine surgery resources to offer suggestions to help improve the readability of patient resources.</jats:p></jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>Online patient education resources were downloaded in 2013 from 50 resources representing either traditional open back surgery or minimally invasive spine surgery. Each resource was assessed using 10 scales from Readability Studio Professional Edition version 2012.1.</jats:p></jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>Patient education resources representing traditional open back surgery or minimally invasive spine surgery were all found to be written at a level well above the recommended 6th grade level. In general, minimally invasive spine surgery materials were written at a higher grade level.</jats:p></jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title> <jats:p>The readability of patient education resources from spine surgery websites exceeds the average reading ability of an American adult. Revisions may be warranted to increase quality and patient comprehension of these resources to effectively reach a greater patient population.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Evaluating the complexity of online patient education materials about brain aneurysms published by major academic institutions

“…Previous studies on the readability of patient education materials for patients undergoing neurosurgical procedures, including those relevant to skull base tumors, have found similar results. [1][2][3]29 Future interventions aimed at improving the readability of patient education materials can have system-wide effects, given the ability of these resources to potentially lessen the need to treat preventable diseases across an array of medical subspecialties. Furthermore, this information can aid patients in better understanding the potential benefits and risks associated with various medical procedures, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will make informed decisions in the clinical setting (i.e., prior to any health intervention).…”

Accessibility, reliability, and usability of neurosurgical resources

“…Previous studies have focused on evaluating the readability of patient education resources. [1][2][3][4][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] Understanding and proper utilization of these resources may require a level beyond the recommended fourth to sixth grade reading level. 3,4 This would leave patients at lower reading levels at a disadvantage.…”

“…5,22 Previous studies have demonstrated that the FRE scores for neurosurgical patient education resources have been low, corresponding to increased difficulty of reading and perhaps lower quality. 1,2,4 This study evaluates the websites of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC; Healthwise Inc.), and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), focusing on the quality of patient education materials provided with regards to their accessibility, usability, and reliability.…”

Automatic Global Level Set Approach for Lumbar Vertebrae CT Image Segmentation

“…Image-guided minimally invasive spine surgery (IG-MISS) was wildly performed for the degenerated lumbar spine in the last decades [ 1 ]. The public demand has been increased for these procedures due to its various benefits, such as performing more accurate instrumentation placement with less radiation exposure, yielding less postoperative complications, and reducing recovery time [ 2 , 3 ]. In Image-guided-surgery (IGS) system, image segmentation of the interesting anatomical structure is an essential preprocessing step for 3D reconstruction and image registration, which is commonly applied in preoperative planning, intraoperative navigation, and postoperative assessment [ 4 ].…”