The readability of patient education materials designed for patients with psoriasis

Abstract

terials from two textbooks12,13 and brochures from the Arthritis Foundation 14·16 on topics related to psoriasis or psoriasis treatment were included. Familiar materials were analyzed for comparison. These included recent health-related articles from Time'? and Newsweek, a New York Times article on skin problerns.!? and Internal RevenueService instructions for completing Form 1040.20 The printed material was scanned with an IOSCAN800 hand-held scanner (Identity Systems Technology, Richardson, Tex.) equipped with GO-CR optical character recognition (Recognita Corporation, Sunnyvale, Calif.). The results were proofread and corrected by the investigators, and the readability was assessed writer Grammatik 5 (Reference Software, San Francisco, Calif.). Three indices of readability were computed: the Flesch readability ease score.l! the Flesch-Kincaid grade level,22 and Gunning's Fog index.23 The Flesch readability ease score and the Flesch-Kincaid grade level are based on the number of words per sentence and the number of syllables per word. The Fog index is based on the number of Table I. Documents analyzed Patient education plays an important role in the care of patients with psoriasis. I, 2 Written material can be obtained from several sources. One source is the National Psoriasis Foundation, which produces booklets on treatment, research, and self-help techniques. ' The readability of patient education materials is an important consideration.v 5 Many Americans do not read at the ninth grade level.5 As a general guideline, material for general consumption should be written at the sixth to eighth grade level. Studies of general patient education materials show that many are written at the tenth grade level or higher.4-6 Patient education material designed for use in dermatology may be difficult to read. Baker et al,? found that the American Academy of Dermatology brochure on Allergic Contact Rashes had a reading ease score of 45, which corresponds to a level commonly found in academic writing. They further demonstrated that improving the readability led to improved comprehension. This study was performed to assess and compare the readability of several readily available patient education material resources designed for patients with psoriasis.