Patients' use of health-teaching materials at three readability levels.
The extent to which patients use and learn from drug literature written at three different readability levels was examined. A two-way analysis of variance showed an interaction effect on knowledge score between the readability level of the leaflet and the amount of schooling subjects reported: persons with higher education learned most from the hardest pamphlet and persons with the least formal education learned the most from the easiest pamphlet. A similar interaction was found in testing the likelihood that patients had read the leaflet. The results suggest that persons with little formal education would benefit from teaching materials with a readability level considerably lower than even many "easy-to-read" health-teaching materials available today.
Dowe
M C
MC
School of Nursing, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599, USA.
Lawrence
P A
PA
Carlson
J
J
Keyserling
T C
TC
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D018579:Patient Selection; D011932:Reading; D013664:Teaching Materials