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Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research®
Published in: Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® 4/2015

01-04-2015 | Clinical Research

Most American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Online Patient Education Material Exceeds Average Patient Reading Level

Authors: Adam E. M. Eltorai, BA, Pranav Sharma, BS, Jing Wang, BS, Alan H. Daniels, MD

Published in: Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® | Issue 4/2015

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Abstract

Background

Advancing health literacy has the potential to improve patient outcomes. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ (AAOS) online patient education materials serve as a tool to improve health literacy for orthopaedic patients; however, it is unknown whether the materials currently meet the National Institutes of Health/American Medical Association’s recommended sixth grade readability guidelines for health information or the mean US adult reading level of eighth grade.

Questions/purposes

The purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate the mean grade level readability of online AAOS patient education materials; and (2) to determine what proportion of the online materials exceeded recommended (sixth grade) and mean US (eighth grade) reading level.

Methods

Reading grade levels for 99.6% (260 of 261) of the online patient education entries from the AAOS were analyzed using the Flesch-Kincaid formula built into Microsoft Word software.

Results

Mean grade level readability of the AAOS patient education materials was 9.2 (SD ± 1.6). Two hundred fifty-one of the 260 articles (97%) had a readability score above the sixth grade level. The readability of the AAOS articles exceeded the sixth grade level by an average of 3.2 grade levels. Of the 260 articles, 210 (81%) had a readability score above the eighth grade level, which is the average reading level of US adults.

Conclusions

Most of the online patient education materials from the AAOS had readability levels that are far too advanced for many patients to comprehend. Efforts to adjust the readability of online education materials to the needs of the audience may improve the health literacy of orthopaedic patients. Patient education materials can be made more comprehensible through use of simpler terms, shorter sentences, and the addition of pictures. More broadly, all health websites, not just those of the AAOS, should aspire to be comprehensible to the typical reader.
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Metadata
Title
Most American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Online Patient Education Material Exceeds Average Patient Reading Level
Authors
Adam E. M. Eltorai, BA
Pranav Sharma, BS
Jing Wang, BS
Alan H. Daniels, MD
Publication date
01-04-2015
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® / Issue 4/2015
Print ISSN: 0009-921X
Electronic ISSN: 1528-1132
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11999-014-4071-2

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