title: Quality of patient education materials for rehabilitation after neurological surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the quality of online patient education materials for rehabilitation following neurological surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  Materials were obtained from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). After removing unnecessary formatting, the readability of each site was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level evaluations with Microsoft Office Word software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The average values of the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level were 41.5 and 11.8, respectively, which are well outside the recommended reading levels for the average American. Moreover, no online section was written below a ninth grade reading level.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Evaluations of several websites from the NINDS, NLM, AOTA, and AAOS demonstrated that their reading levels were higher than that of the average American. Improved readability might be beneficial for patient education. Ultimately, increased patient comprehension may correlate to positive clinical outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological Surgery, New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Nitin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sarris
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Hansberry
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: James C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Barrese
authors.forename: Charles J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Prestigiacomo
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000534:rehabilitation* / Q000601:surgery*; D009862:Online Systems; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D011932:Reading