ArticleHealthcare (Basel, Switzerland)2022
Assessment of the Readability and Quality of Online Patient Education Material for Chronic Medical Conditions.
Article in Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 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
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Canadian Professional Association Resources on Diet and Tooth Decay: Website Content Analysis.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- An Analysis of the Readability of Public-Facing Information Relating to Prevention of Infectious Diseases by Vaccination.British journal of biomedical science · 2025Article
- Assessing the Functional Accessibility, Actionability, and Quality of Patient Education Materials from Canadian Cancer Agencies.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2023Article
- Assessment of online patient education material for eye cancers: A cross-sectional study.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- Evaluation of information provided to patients by ChatGPT about chronic diseases in Spanish language.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Patient education materials (PEMs) were assessed from chronic health condition associations to determine their quality and if they were above the 6th grade reading level (GRL) recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health. PEMs from 55 associations were assessed for their GRL using ten readability scales and underwent a difficult word analysis. The associations had their quality assessed using two methods: the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Benchmarks and Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct certification (HONCode). Two thousand five hundred and ninety PEMs, collected between June and November 2021, were analyzed. The overall GRL average was 10.8 ± 2.8, with a range of 0 to 19. Difficult word analysis showed that 15.8% ± 4.8 contained complex words of 3 or more syllables and 25.7% ± 6.3 contained words which were unfamiliar. No association displayed all four indicators of quality according to JAMA Benchmarks or held an up-to-date HONCode certification. The PEM readability continues to be written at a level above the recommended GRL. Additionally, the lack of quality indicators from the associations' websites may make it difficult for older adults to identify the sources as credible. This represents an opportunity to optimize materials that would be understood by a wider audience.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.