Chinese Text Readability of Patient Educational Materials in Nursing

Ru-Yu Lien ； Ying, Liang ； Chia-Hui Liao ； Ching-Ching, Sheng ； Hsiao-Hui, Chiu ； Hsiu-Chuan, Hsu ； Ting-Fang, Yiu

《The Proceedings of the 8th AHLA International Conference: Health Literacy in Social Resilience》 2022 (2022/12) Pp. 138-139

https://doi.org/10.30181/AHLA.202210.0089

摘要

INTRODUCTION: The reading level of patient education material composed by health care prover is sometimes beyond readers’ reach. As a result, the purposes of patient education material cannot be implanted. US National Institute of Health suggests that keep material reading level between 6th to 8th grade, to meet the needs of readers with different health literacy levels, achieve health goals for entire population. Patient educational materials of healthcare provider providing is well beyond most readers' understanding. National Institutes of Health suggest that keep the language within the range of a 6th to 8th grade reading level, to meet the needs of user with different health literacy levels, achieve health goals for entire population.
OBJECTIVES: To investigate the readability and understanding of patient education materials in nursing. Investigating the readability and understanding of patient educational materials in nursing.
METHODS: From January to June 2022, 30 patient educational materials in nursing were selected by the research team, including four categories: “disease care”, “health promotion”, “examination & therapy”, and “surgery”. Team up with Higher Education Sprout Project Office of National Taiwan Normal University. Using ""Chinese Readability Index Explorer 3.0"" automatically grade and judge that patient educational materials in nursing.
RESULTS: In average, Chinese text readability grade of patient educational materials in nursing was 7.7. Nineteen materials were below 9th grade (63.3%). Eleven materials were above 8th grade (36.7%), there were 10 materials of them in 9th grade (33.3%) and 1 material (3.3%) was 10th grade. There were 2 categories, including “disease care” and “examination & therapy”, on the recommended readability level (grades 7/7.3). Respectively, the other two categories of “surgery” and “health promotion”, were exceeding the recommended reading level (grades 8.3 /8.6).
CONCLUSION: This study conducted a cross-disciplinary collaboration to test the Chinese text readability of patient educational materials in nursing. Although some materials are still suitable for high grades, especially the materials for “surgery” and “health promotion”. The content analysis found those materials contained medical terms, proper nouns and a few difficult reading words, such as valves, lymph nodes, embryos, cytoplasm, artificial fibers, judicial or parties, etc. In the future, we must continue to implement the concept of Chinese text readability in patient educational materials to reduce complex words, proper nouns and abbreviations. It can also be converted into easy-to-understand language by consulting patients to comprehensively optimize the patient educational materials content of the medical center to enhance public health literacy.