Reading Level of Lung Cancer Patient Education Materials

Abstract

Patient's interest in learning more about their health and medical issues has grown tremendously over the last decade. Consumers demand to be informed and participate in their health care decisions. However, this increasing demand for information is confounded in the fact that many people in the United States cannot read above an eighth grade reading level. Most health information materials are not written at an appropriate level for the majority of Americans to read. This paper is a reexamination of an earlier study done in 1995 that surveyed patient education materials on lung cancer available from national organizations, such as the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute. The 1995 study done by Sarna and Ganley found that very few materials were available and they were written at a much higher reading level than what most Americans could comprehend. The purpose of this study is to see if more materials are available and written at a useable level.