Lessons to be learned when designing comprehensible patient‐oriented online information about temporomandibular disorders

Abstract

BackgroundTemporomandibular disorders (TMD) are a prevalent ailment with a global impact, affecting a substantial number of individuals. While some individuals are receiving treatment from orthodontists for TMD, a significant proportion of individuals obtain knowledge through websites.ObjectivesOur purpose had been to evaluate, from a patient‐oriented perspective, the readability of home pages of websites scored in the 10 most prominent devoted to TMD. We also determined what level of education would have been needed to get an overview of the information on the websites under scrutiny. This approach ensures that our findings are centred on the patient experience, providing insights into how accessible and understandable websites about TMD.MethodsWe determined the top 10 patient‐focused English language websites by searching for ‘temporomandibular disorders’ in the ‘no country redirect’ plugin of the Google Chrome browser (www.google.com/ncr). The readability of the texts was assessed using the Gunning fog index (GFI), Coleman Liau index (CLI), Automated readability index (ARI) Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), Flesch Kincald grade level (FKGL), Flesh reasing ease (FRE) (https://readabilityformulas.com).ResultsThe mean Flesch reading ease index score was determined to be 48.67, accompanied by a standard deviation of 15.04 and these websites require an average of 13.49 years of formal education (GFI), with a standard deviation of 2.62, for ease of understanding.ConclusionOur research indicates that a significant proportion of websites related to TMD can be defined as a level of complexity that exceeds the ability to read comprehension of the general population.