ArticleJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA2016
Readability assessment of patient-provider electronic messages in a primary care setting.
Article in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Language complexity of patient-physician chat communication on hypertension control: results of the cluster-randomised PIA study.BMC medicine · 2025Trial
- A scoping review of studies on secure messaging through patient portals: persistent challenges and potential solutions.npj health systems · 2026Article
- Classification of patient- and clinician-generated secure messages using a theory-based taxonomy.Health science reports · 2021Article
- Twenty-first Century Bedside Manner: Exploring Patient-Centered Communication in Secure Messaging with Cancer Patients.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2021Article
- Su salud a la mano (your health at hand): patient perceptions about a bilingual patient portal in the Los Angeles safety net.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2019Article
- An analysis of patient-provider secure messaging at two Veterans Health Administration medical centers: message content and resolution through secure messaging.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe high prevalence of limited health literacy among patients threatens the success of secure electronic messaging between patients from diverse populations and their providers.
objectiveThe purpose of this study is to generate hypotheses about the readability of patient and provider electronic messages.
methodsWe collected 31 patient-provider e-mail exchanges (n = 119 total messages) from a safety-net primary care clinic. We compared the messages' mean word count and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Levels (FKGLs), calculated the frequency of provider messages below an FKGL = 8, and assessed readability concordance between patients' and providers' messages.
resultsPatients used more words in their initial e-mails compared to providers, but the FKGLs were similar, and 68% of provider messages were written below an FKGL = 8. Of 31 exchanges, 9 (29%) contained at least one patient message with an FKGL > 3 grade levels lower than the corresponding provider message(s).
conclusionOur study demonstrates that most providers are able to respond to patient electronic messages with a matching reading level.
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Registered trials
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