ArticleEpilepsia open2023
Readability and content gaps in online epilepsy surgery materials as potential health literacy and shared-decision-making barriers.
Article in Epilepsia open, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 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
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Cloudy or Clear? Readability and Content Analysis of Patient Education Materials in Myasthenia Gravis.Muscle & nerve · 2026Article
- Understanding and overcoming delays to pediatric epilepsy surgery: a scoping review.Child's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery · 2026Article
- Evaluation of large Language models on pediatric asthma: a comparative study of Claude3-Opus, Gemini 2.0, ChatGPT-4o, and DeepSeek-a cross-sectional questionnaire study.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2026Article
- Evaluating the readability, understandability, quality, and popularity of online materials about epilepsy in children.BMC pediatrics · 2026Article
- A network analysis of ego depletion and self-management in patients with epilepsy: differences across seizure frequencies.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Readability and content gaps in online epilepsy surgery materials as potential health literacy and shared-decision-making barriers.Epilepsia open · 2023Article
- Health literacy in patients with epilepsy: a narrative review of current status, influencing factors, and future directions.Frontiers in neurologyReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveEpilepsy surgery is an effective albeit underused treatment for refractory epilepsy, and online materials are vital to patient understanding of the complex process. Our goal is to analyze the readability and content inclusion of online patient health education materials designed for epilepsy surgery.
methodsA private browser setting was used on Google and Bing to identify the top 100 search results for the terms "epilepsy+surgery". Scientific papers, insurance pages, pay-wall access sites, and non-text content were excluded. The website text was reformatted to exclude graphics, contact information, links, and headers. Readability metrics were calculated using an online tool. Text content was analyzed for inclusion of important concepts (pre-surgical evaluation, complications, risks of continued seizures, types of surgery, complimentary diagrams/audiovisual material). Comparison of readability and content inclusion was performed as a function of organization types (epilepsy center, community health organization, pediatric-specific) and location (region, country).
resultsBrowser search yielded 82 distinct websites with information regarding epilepsy surgery, with 98.7% of websites exceeding the recommended 6th-grade reading level for health information. Epilepsy centers had significantly worse readability (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) P < 0.01 and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) P < 0.05). Content analysis showed that only 37% of websites discuss surgical side effects and only 23% mention the risks of continued seizures. Epilepsy centers were less likely to report information on surgical side effects (P < 0.001). UK-based websites had better readability (FKGL P < 0.01 and FRE P < 0.01) and were more likely to discuss side effects (P = 0.01) compared to US-based websites. SIGNIFICANCE: The majority of online health content is overly complex and relatively incomplete in multiple key areas important to health literacy and understanding of surgical candidacy. Our findings suggest academic organizations, including level 4 epilepsy centers, need to simplify and broaden online education resources. More comprehensive, publicly accessible, and readable information may lead to better-shared decision-making.
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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.