Readability of neurosurgery-related patient education materials provided by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health

Abstract

Objective: Most professional organizations now provide patient information material, and not all of this material is appropriate for the average American adult to comprehend. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the United States Department of Health and Human Services recommend that patient education materials be written at the sixth-grade level. Our aim was to assess the readability of neurosurgery-related patient education material and compare it with The American Medical Association, NIH, and United States Department of Health and Human Services recommendations.

Methods: Materials provided by the American Association of Neurologic Surgeons (AANS) and the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and National Institutes of Health were assessed with the Flesch-Kincaid grade level and Flesch Reading Ease score with Microsoft Office Word software.

Results: None of the articles had Flesch-Kincaid grade levels at or below the sixth-grade level. All articles on the AANS Conditions and Treatments section were written at or above the ninth-grade level; three of the AANS Camera-Ready Fact Sheets and four of the NIH/NLM articles were written between the seventh- and eighth-grade levels.

Conclusions: Current patient education material provided by the AANS is written well above the recommended level. Material from the NLM and NIH performed better, but was still above the recommended sixth-grade level. Education materials should contain information relevant to patients' conditions, be accurate in the information they present, and be written with the average patient in mind.

Keywords: AANS; ANOVA; American Association of Neurological Surgeons; Analysis of variance; Comprehension; FKGL; FRE; Flesch Reading Ease; Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level; NIH; NLM; National Institutes of Health; National Library of Medicine; Neurosurgery patient education handout; URL; Uniform Resource Locator.