Readability of pediatric patient education materials. Current perspectives on an old problem

Abstract

Written patient education materials are an important part of ambulatory pediatric practices. We evaluated the readability of 33 representative pediatric education materials using three common formulas: Fog, Fry, and SMOG. The majority of pamphlets had readabilities of grade nine or above. The need to use multiple readability formulas was also demonstrated. Although the three readability formulas were highly correlated, they were significantly different from each other when using a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) design. In almost half, the readability estimates differed by at least two grade levels. In addition, a large intrapamphlet variability for some pamphlets suggests a need to focus more attention on the readability of multiple sections within a pamphlet, not only on the overall or average readability. We conclude that the readability levels of patient education materials continue to be too high.