Exploring the ability of ChatGPT to create quality patient education resources about kidney transplant

Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) is a language model that may have the potential to revolutionize health care. The study purpose was to test whether ChatGPT could be used to create educational brochures about kidney transplant tailored for three target audiences: caregivers, teens and children.

Using a list of 25 educational topics, standardized prompts were employed to ensure content consistency in ChatGPT generation. An expert panel assessed the accuracy of the content by rating agreement on a Likert scale (1 = <25 % agreement; and 5 = 100 % agreement). The understandability, actionability and readability of the brochures were assessed using the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for printable materials (PEMAT-P) and standard readability scales. A caregiver and patient reviewed and provided written feedback.

We found mean understandability scores of 69 %, 66 %, and 73 % for caregiver, teen, and child brochures respectively, with 90.7 % of the ChatGPT generated brochures scoring 40 % on the actionability scale. Generated caregiver and teen materials achieved readability levels of grades 9-14, while child-specific brochures achieved readability levels of grades 6-11. Brochures were formatted appropriately but lacked depth.

ChatGPT demonstrates potential for rapidly generating patient education materials; however, challenges remain in ensuring content specificity. We share the lessons learned to assist other healthcare providers with using this technology.