Evaluation of Health Literacy in Plastic Surgery Using a Crowdsourced Patient Survey

Abstract

Background: Little is known about the levels of health literacy (HL) among plastic and reconstructive surgery (PRS) patients compared with the general population. This study aimed to characterize HL levels in patients interested in plastic surgery and identify potential risk factors associated with inadequate levels of HL among this population. Methods: Amazon’s Mechanical Turk was used to distribute a survey. The Chew’s Brief Health Literacy Screener was used to evaluate the level of HL. The cohort was divided into two groups: non-PRS and PRS groups. Four subgroups were created: cosmetic, noncosmetic, reconstructive, and nonreconstructive groups. A multivariable logistic regression model was constructed to assess associations between levels of HL and sociodemographic characteristics. Results: A total of 510 responses were analyzed in this study. Of those, 34% of participants belong to the PRS group and 66% to the non-PRS group. Inadequate levels of HL were evidenced in 52% and 50% of the participants in the non-PRS and PRS groups, respectively (P = 0.780). No difference in HL levels was found in the noncosmetic versus cosmetic groups (P = 0.783). A statistically significant difference in HL levels was evidenced between nonreconstructive versus reconstructive groups after holding other sociodemographic factors constant (0.29, OR; 95% CI, 0.15–0.58; P < 0.001). Conclusions: Inadequate levels of HL were present in almost half of the cohort, which highlights the importance of adequately assessing HL levels in all patients. It is of utmost importance to evaluate HL in clinical practice using evidence-based criteria to better inform and educate patients interested in plastic surgery.

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“…Baseline health literacy levels have been demonstrated to be inadequate amongst plastic surgery patients. 30 Taking such concerns into consideration, the American Medical Association and the United States Department of Health and Human Services recommend that medical information intended for patients be written at the sixth grade level. 31 The reading level of the ChatGPT outputs in this study were substantially higher (at the college level) than this recommendation, posing a limitation to the accessibility of the AI-generated outputs to the general public of the United States.…”

Can AI Answer My Questions? Utilizing Artificial Intelligence in the Perioperative Assessment for Abdominoplasty Patients

“…More importantly, this situation highlights issues surrounding the accessibility of information. It has been observed that the health literacy levels among plastic surgery patients are typically insufficient [44][45][46][47]. Recommendations by the American Medical Association and the National Institutes of Health suggest that materials related to plastic surgery should be written at a sixth-to eighthgrade reading level [47].…”