Readability of Patient Education Materials in Plastic Surgery: Assessing 14 Years of Progress

Current recommendations suggest that patient education materials (PEMs) be written at or below the sixth-grade reading level. In a 2010 study, the average readability of PEMs on the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) and The Aesthetic Society (AS) websites was found to be at the 11th-grade level or higher. We sought to assess progress made toward providing accessible PEMs.

PEMs were obtained from the ASPS and AS websites. The PEMs were entered into an online scoring tool. PEMs were scored on 3 common readability indices: Flesch-Kincaid, Simple Measure of Gobbledygook, and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE).

The average grade level of ASPS PEMs calculated using the Flesch-Kincaid, Simple Measure of Gobbledygook, and FRE readability models were 9.7 ± 1.1, 12.6 ± 0.7, and 47.6 ± 6.2, respectively. This FRE score corresponds to approximately grade 13-16 reading levels. The average of AS PEMs were 9.3 ± 0.5, 12.3 ± 0.3, and 51.3 ± 3.9, respectively; this FRE corresponds to grade 10-12 reading levels. There were no PEMs written at or below the recommended sixth-grade reading level found on ASPS and AS websites.

Despite increasing awareness of the need for equitable access to healthcare, PEMs continue to be written at a reading level well above the recommendation. Over the past 14 years, we have seen only modest improvement in readability indices. In addition to advocating for more accessible PEMs, we must gather a deeper understanding of how patients seek information about plastic surgery.