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. 2018 Nov;13(6):705-714.
doi: 10.1177/1558944717726138. Epub 2017 Aug 24.

Readability of the Most Commonly Accessed Online Patient Education Materials Pertaining to Pathology of the Hand

Sheriff D Akinleye  1 , Garret Garofolo-Gonzalez  1 , Michael Montuori  2 , Maya Deza Culbertson  1 , Jennifer Hashem  1 , David Marc Edelstein  1
Affiliations

Readability of the Most Commonly Accessed Online Patient Education Materials Pertaining to Pathology of the Hand

Sheriff D Akinleye et al. Hand (N Y). 2018 Nov.

Abstract

Background: The American Medical Association (AMA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommend that patient education materials be written at no higher than a sixth-grade reading level.

Methods: We examined 100 online educational materials for the 10 hand conditions most commonly treated by hand surgeons, as reported by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. The listed conditions were carpal tunnel syndrome, basal joint arthritis of the thumb, de Quervain syndrome, Dupuytren's contracture, ganglion cysts, hand fractures, trigger finger, extensor tendon injuries, flexor tendon injuries, and mallet finger. Following a Google search for each condition, we analyzed the 10 most visited websites for each disorder utilizing the Flesch-Kincaid formula.

Results: The average grade reading level of the 100 websites studied was 9.49 with a reading ease of 53.03 ("fairly difficult high school"). Only 29% of the websites were at or below the national average of an eighth-grade reading level. Carpal tunnel syndrome had the highest average grade reading level at 10.32 (standard deviation: 1.52), whereas hand fractures had the lowest at 8.14 (2.03). Every hand condition in this study had an average readability at or above the ninth-grade reading level.

Conclusions: The most frequently accessed materials for common maladies of the hand exceed both the readability limits recommended by the AMA and NIH, and the average reading ability of most US adults. Therefore, the most commonly accessed websites pertaining to hand pathology may not be comprehended by the audience for which it is intended.

Keywords: ASSH; Flesch-Kincaid; Google; hand conditions; readability; reading level.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Mean Flesch-Kincaid grade level by condition.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Mean Flesch-Kincaid reading ease by condition.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

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