Abstract No. 474 Readability of Spanish-language patient education materials from RadiologyInfo.org

Abstract

The United States currently has the second-largest group of Spanish-speaking citizens in the world with 41 million native Spanish speakers. However, little attention has been paid towards assessing patient comprehension of Spanish-language healthcare educational materials. The purpose of this study was to assess the readability of patient educational materials written in Spanish from the RadiologyInfo.org website. All patient education articles written in Spanish available in 2017 from the American College of Radiology (ACR) and Radiological Society of North America (RSNA)-sponsored RadiologyInfo.org patient education library were reviewed. We assessed each article for readability using 3 quantitative readability scales validated for assessing Spanish written text: Gilliam-Peña-Mountain scale, Läsbarhets formula (LIX) Rate Index formula (RIX), and SOL formula (modified-SMOG). The number of articles with readability ≤ the 8th grade level (average reading ability of US adults) and the 6th grade level (NIH-recommended level for patient education materials) were determined. 131 patient education articles were reviewed. The mean readability grade level was greater than the 11th grade reading level for all readability scales. Only 1 article was written at less than the eighth grade or the sixth grade levels. Spanish-language patient educational materials provided by the ACR and RSNA-sponsored RadiologyInfo.org website are written at levels too high for the average patient. These findings are consistent with several prior studies assessing radiology-related patient educational materials written in English. Future efforts should be made to improve the readability of these patient education materials for English and Spanish-speakers alike.