Related Experiment Videos
Functional illiteracy among emergency department patients: a preliminary study
B T Jolly1, J L Scott, C F Feied
1Georgetown/George Washington Emergency Medicine Residency Program, Washington, DC.
Annals of Emergency Medicine
|March 1, 1993
Summary
Many emergency department (ED) patients struggle to understand written discharge instructions. Standard ED instructions are often written at a reading level too high for comprehension, necessitating simpler materials.
Area of Science:
- Health literacy
- Patient education
- Emergency medicine
Background:
- Written discharge instructions are crucial for patient understanding and adherence.
- Assessing patient comprehension and readability of these instructions is vital for effective healthcare.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate emergency department (ED) patients' ability to comprehend standard written discharge instructions.
- To determine the reading difficulty level of commonly used ED discharge instructions.
Main Methods:
- Part 1: 400 adult ED patients answered questions about provided discharge instructions, with results correlated to demographics.
- Part 2: 47 sets of ED discharge instructions were analyzed for readability using five standard formulas, yielding grade level scores.
Main Results:
- A significant number of ED patients could not correctly answer at least four out of five questions on discharge instructions.
- Higher education levels correlated with better comprehension; younger patients showed a trend toward better understanding.
- Discharge instructions ranged from 6.0 to 13.4 grade level, often featuring complex sentence structures and lengthy text.
Conclusions:
- Many ED patients exhibit a clear difficulty in understanding written discharge instructions.
- The reading level of ED discharge instructions frequently exceeds the comprehension capabilities of a large patient population.
- Healthcare providers must simplify written materials and explore alternative communication methods for improved patient understanding.