Readability of Online Patient Education Materials for Shoulder Instability Surgery in English and Spanish

Jacob S Ghahremani; Jenna E Ogi; Michael T Kody; Ronald A Navarro

doi:10.1016/j.jse.2024.02.028

Readability of Online Patient Education Materials for Shoulder Instability Surgery in English and Spanish

J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2024 Apr 4:S1058-2746(24)00230-1. doi: 10.1016/j.jse.2024.02.028. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Jacob S Ghahremani¹, Jenna E Ogi², Michael T Kody³, Ronald A Navarro⁴

Affiliations

¹ Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Pasadena, CA, USA. Electronic address: Jacob.S.Ghahremani@kp.org.
² University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, CA, USA.
⁴ Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Pasadena, CA, USA; Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Kaiser Permanente South Bay Medical Center, Harbor City, CA, USA.

PMID: 38582252
DOI: 10.1016/j.jse.2024.02.028

Abstract

Background: Online patient education materials exist to inform patient medical decisions, yet the average adult in the United States reads at an eighth-grade level and 50% of Medicaid patients read at or below a fifth-grade level. To appropriately meet U.S. health literacy needs, the American Medical Association and National Institutes of Health recommend that patient education materials not exceed a sixth-grade level. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare the readability of English and Spanish online patient education materials pertaining to shoulder instability surgery.

Methods: Google searches of the terms "shoulder instability surgery" and "cirugía de inestabilidad de hombro'' were conducted to include 25 eligible OPEMs per language. English OPEM readability was calculated using Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch Reading Ease Grade Level, Gunning-Fog Index, Coleman-Liau Index, and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook. Spanish OPEM readability was assessed using Fernandez-Huerta Index (the Spanish equivalent of Flesch Reading Ease), Fernandez-Huerta Index Grade Level, Gutiérrez de Polini's Fórmula de comprensibilidad, and INFLESZ.

Results: Readability index analysis revealed that the mean Flesch Reading Ease of English online patient education materials was significantly lower than the mean Fernandez-Huerta Index of Spanish online patient education materials. English materials were also found to be written at a significantly higher grade level than Spanish materials.

Conclusions: Shoulder instability surgery online patient education materials in both English and Spanish are written at higher reading levels than recommended by the AMA and NIH, though Spanish online patient education materials were more readable on average.

Keywords: Health equity; Health literacy; Internet Sources; Level of Evidence: Survey Study; Patient Education Materials; Patient education materials; Readability; Shoulder instability; Sports medicine.