A comparative analysis of neurosurgical online education materials to assess patient comprehension

The Readability of Online Patient Resources for Skin Cancer Treatment

“…Furthermore, many were written significantly above this, with two having a readability level in keeping with university-level reading ability. These results are in keeping with many other studies, which have shown that online patient information in breast cancer [32], cleft lip and palate [33], neurosurgery [34] and stroke [22] are all written above the recommended 6th grade level. It is interesting to note that the problem is therefore not condition specific and has not been improving with time, despite increased awareness and reporting of the issue.…”

Assessment of Online Patient Education Materials From Major Ophthalmologic Associations

“…Readability above the average American literacy level is a widespread issue that has been identified broadly throughout PEMs in other specialties and is not just limited to ophthalmology. Prior studies performed in other surgical subspecialties such as otolaryngology, [20][21][22] urology, 23 orthopedic surgery, [24][25][26] and neurosurgery 27 have shown similar results:…”

Are We Effectively Informing Patients? A Quantitative Analysis of On-Line Patient Education Resources from the American Society of Neuroradiology

“…These discrepancies in content versus intent are not a new phenomenon inasmuch as other Web sites have been shown to have a disjunction between the level of complexity of their patient education materials and the ability of the average reader to understand them. [13][14][15]20,[23][24][25] A recent article from JAMA Internal Medicine revealed that 16 major national physician organizations had Web sites that presented patient education materials above the AMA and National Institutes of Health guidelines. 22 That study did note that one organization had marginally acceptable levels of readability of their resources (American Academy of Family Physicians), meeting the AMA and the National Institutes of Health guidelines on some but not all readability scales.…”

“…5,11 Despite these guidelines, many of the Web sites of several national physician organizations, including medical, surgical, and subspecialty fields, have provided texts at a level too complex for most of the public to comprehend. [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] Recent reports that evaluate the readability of patient education resources on radiology Web sites, sponsored by major organizations such as the Radiological Society of North America, the American College of Radiology, the Society of Interventional Radiology, and the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiologic Society of Europe, demonstrated that the material offered to the public is written at a level well above the AMA and the National Institutes of Health recommendations. 24,25 In this study, we investigated the level of readability of all patient education resources on the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR) Web site by using a variety of quantitative readability-assessment scales.…”