ArticleBMC health services research2021
Design and preliminary evaluation of a newly designed patient-friendly discharge letter - a randomized, controlled participant-blind trial.
Article in BMC health services research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Patient-centered discharge summaries to support safety and individual health literacy: a double-blind randomized controlled trial in Austria.BMC health services research · 2024Trial
- Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing AI-Generated, Clinician-Edited to Human-Generated After-Visit Summaries.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Digital health · 2026Article
- Enhancing Post-Discharge Care for People Who Have Had an Acute Myocardial Infarction in Portugal: Insights From Patient Journey Mapping.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2025Article
- Layperson-Friendly AI Translation of Medical Documents to Improve Doctor-Patient Communication: Protocols for the AI-INFOCARE and AI-MEDTALK Randomized Controlled Trials.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- What's Going On With Me and How Can I Better Manage My Health? The Potential of GPT-4 to Transform Discharge Letters Into Patient-Centered Letters to Enhance Patient Safety: Prospective, Exploratory Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Development of Recommendations for the Digital Sharing of Notes With Adolescents in Mental Health Care: Delphi Study.JMIR mental health · 2024Article
- Generative Artificial Intelligence to Transform Inpatient Discharge Summaries to Patient-Friendly Language and Format.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- The mutual benefits of patient and public involvement in research: an example from a feasibility study (MoTaStim-Foot).Research involvement and engagement · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLow health literacy has been associated with poor health outcome and impaired use of healthcare services. The hospital discharge letter represents a key source of medical information for patients and can be used to address the problem of low health literacy. The aim of this project was to develop and evaluate a new, patient-directed, version of the discharge letter.
methodsBased upon two conventional discharge letters (CDL; one surgical and one medical letter), two new, patient-friendly discharge letters (PFDL) were designed following 5 key principles: short sentences, few abbreviations, large font size, avoidance of technical terms and no more than 4 pages length. Medical undergraduates were randomized into two blinded groups (CDL, PFDL) and asked to assess the assigned letter for the 3 domains structure, content and patient-friendliness. Subsections were rated on a 6-point Likert scale (1 = completely agree, 6 = completely disagree), the results of the survey were compared using the Mann-Whitney-U-Test with a p < 0.05 being the level of significance.
resultsIn total, 74 undergraduates participated in this study. PFDL (35 participants) were rated significantly better than CDL (39 participants) regarding structure (median 1 vs. 2, p = 0.005), content (1 vs. 3, p < 0.001) and patient-friendliness (2 vs. 6, p < 0.001). Of all 17 subsections, PFDL were rated significantly better in 12 cases, and never worse than CDL.
conclusionsPFDL were rated significantly better than their CDL counterparts. Medical undergraduates were considered the ideal cohort, not being medical lays and yet unbiased regarding everyday clinical practice procedures. Further tests evaluating the impact of the PFDL on patient comprehension and health literacy are necessary.
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