ArticlePractical radiation oncology
Online patient information from radiation oncology departments is too complex for the general population.
Article in Practical radiation oncology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Direct Patient-Provider Relationship With the Medical Physicist Reduces Anxiety in Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy.International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics · 2023Trial
- Lessons from the TREC Plain Language Adaptation of Biomedical Abstracts (PLABA) track.Journal of biomedical informatics · 2026Article
- Assessing ChatGPT's Educational Potential in Lung Cancer Radiotherapy From Clinician and Patient Perspectives: Content Quality and Readability Analysis.JMIR cancer · 2025Article
- Article
- Evaluating pre-consult patient education videos for patients with newly-diagnosed anal squamous cell carcinoma: Impact on patient comprehension, satisfaction and distress.Technical innovations & patient support in radiation oncology · 2024Article
- Quality of Large Language Model Responses to Radiation Oncology Patient Care Questions.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Smartphone-based augmented reality patient education in radiation oncology.Technical innovations & patient support in radiation oncology · 2024Article
- Validation testing of a language translation device for suitability in assisting Australian radiation therapists to communicate with Mandarin-speaking patients.Technical innovations & patient support in radiation oncology · 2023Article
- Health Literacy and Radiation Therapy: a Current State Assessment of Patient Education Materials.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2023Article
- A dataset for plain language adaptation of biomedical abstracts.Scientific data · 2023Article
- Virtual Reality-Based Education for Patients Undergoing Radiation Therapy.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2022Article
- Three discipline collaborative radiation therapy (3DCRT) special debate: A physicist's time is better spent in direct patient/provider interaction than in the patient's chart.Journal of applied clinical medical physics · 2022Article
- Precision patient education using a "flipped classroom" approach.Journal of applied clinical medical physics · 2022Article
- Evaluation of a breastmilk hand expression toolkit: the M.I.L.K survey study.International breastfeeding journal · 2022Article
- A review of patient questions from physicist-patient consults.Journal of applied clinical medical physics · 2020Review
- A Systematic Assessment of Google Search Queries and Readability of Online Gynecologic Oncology Patient Education Materials.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2019Article
- A program to train medical physicists for direct patient care responsibilities.Journal of applied clinical medical physics · 2018Article
- Medical physicists should meet with patients as part of the initial consult.Journal of applied clinical medical physics · 2018Article
- RTAnswers Online Patient Education Materials Deviate From Recommended Reading Levels.Applied radiation oncology · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeNearly two-thirds of cancer patients seek information about their diagnosis online. We assessed the readability of online patient education materials found on academic radiation oncology department Web sites to determine whether they adhered to guidelines suggesting that information be presented at a sixth-grade reading level. METHODS AND MATERIALS: The Association of American Medical Colleges Web site was used to identify all academic radiation oncology departments in the United States. One-third of these department Web sites were selected for analysis using a random number generator. Both general information on radiation therapy and specific information regarding various radiation modalities were collected. To test the hypothesis that the readability of these online educational materials was written at the recommended grade level, a panel of 10 common readability tests was used. A composite grade level of readability was constructed using the 8 readability measures that provide a single grade-level output.
resultsA mean of 5605 words (range, 2058-12,837) from 30 department Web sites was collected. Using the composite grade level score, the overall mean readability level was determined to be 13.36 (12.83-13.89), corresponding to a collegiate reading level. This was significantly higher than the target sixth-grade reading level (middle school, t (29) = 27.41, P < .001).
conclusionsOnline patient educational materials from academic radiation oncology Web sites are significantly more complex than recommended by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services. To improve patients' comprehension of radiation therapy and its role in their treatment, our analysis suggests that the language used in online patient information should be simplified to communicate the information at a more appropriate level.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.