An Online Readability Analysis of Pathology-Related Patient Education Articles: An Opportunity for Pathologists to Educate Patients

Information for patients regarding their clinical conditions and treatment options is widely available online. The American Medical Association and National Institutes of Health recommend that online patient-oriented materials be written at no higher than a 7th grade reading level to ensure full comprehension by the average American. This study sought to determine whether online patient-oriented materials explaining common pathology procedures are written at appropriate reading levels. Ten pathology procedures that patients would likely research were queried into Google search, and plain text from the first 10 websites containing patient education materials for each procedure were analyzed using 10 validated readability scales.

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