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Readability of advance directive documents

B B Ott1, T L Hardie

  • 1Villanova University, College of Nursing, PA 19085, USA.

Image--The Journal of Nursing Scholarship
|April 1, 1997
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Advance directive documents were difficult for patients to read, averaging an 11th-grade level. Simplifying these legal forms is crucial for informed patient consent and end-of-life care decisions.

Area of Science:

  • Health Literacy
  • Legal Document Analysis
  • Patient Autonomy

Background:

  • Advance directives are crucial legal documents for end-of-life care planning.
  • Patient comprehension of advance directives is essential for informed decision-making.
  • Previous assessments of advance directive readability are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the readability of commonly used advance directive documents.
  • To determine if the reading level of these documents aligns with general patient populations.
  • To identify potential barriers to patient understanding of advance directives.

Main Methods:

  • A descriptive study design was employed.
  • Ten advance directive documents were collected from various sources.
Keywords:
Death and EuthanasiaEmpirical Approach

Related Experiment Videos

  • Readability was assessed using Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Flesch Reading Score, and Gunning's Fog Index.

    • Main Results:

    • The average readability scores indicated a high reading level.
    • Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level averaged 11.3 (equivalent to an 11th-grade reading level).
    • Gunning's Fog Index yielded an average of 18.2, suggesting significant complexity.

    Conclusions:

    • All assessed advance directive documents exceeded recommended reading levels for patient comprehension.
    • The complexity of these documents may hinder patients' ability to understand their end-of-life care options.
    • Simplifying advance directive language is recommended to enhance patient understanding and support autonomy.