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Glaucoma search research online medical resources lack readability.
Have you ever heard of Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG)? If you have it or not, let’s discuss it.
A study titled “Readability and Quality Assessment of Online Patient Education Materials for Open-Angle Glaucoma Treatment” was recently published. BMJ Open Ophthalmology.1 As the title suggests, the aim was to determine how much reading and comprehension was possible for patients trying to use online texts.
Have you ever politely asked a patient not to Google their disease too much? i’ve got. It is a rare event; The only cases I can recall are a patient who wanted to switch from latanoprost to apple cider vinegar in her glaucoma treatment and another patient who read online that I was not qualified to treat eye diseases.
In fact, everyone has useful information and information that is not only useless, but can harm health.
Of course, the public has access to peer-reviewed literature—maintained by bodies such as the National Institutes of Health—but most people do not have the reading level necessary to meaningfully digest much of the content. Clearly there is room for improvement here.
Let’s go back to the mentioned study.
The study
As you may have guessed, the study involved a Google search. Those of you who, like me, have read a lot of research (either because you want to or because you have to) may scoff at such a method.
However, this is an appropriate method to see what our patients are exposed to online.
The investigators analyzed 3 general glaucoma searches and the top 10 Google search results for the following glaucoma medications: timolol, brimonidine, apraclonidine, dorzolamide, latanoprost, bimatoprost, travoprost, tafluprost, and brinzolamide.
All web pages containing search results were analyzed for readability using the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), Gunning Fog Index (GFI), and Simple Gobbledygook Index (SMOG). The websites were also evaluated using accountability metrics. Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)..
A total of 111 articles were analyzed and the investigators concluded that most of the online glaucoma content included in the study was written in 6th grade, which is too difficult for the online user.
perspective
For some perspective, the American Medical Association recommends that patient education materials be written in 6th grade or below.2 He is 11 or 12 years old. In Great Britain, Health Education England recommends that patient education be written for 11-year-olds.3
Since most websites have limited or no quality control standards, Jama A series of accountability criteria—authorship, currency, attributes, and disclosure—to rank data available for public consumption.4
Conclusion
The Internet is a great resource when used correctly. It is also clear that patients who know more about their health and disease status are more likely to take ownership, which may lead to better prescribing of medications and other treatments.
This research suggests that there is a pressing need for more health care knowledge and online access to health care resources that patients can use. Despite much inequity in health care, most patients in the US have limited access to the Internet. The websites you access should be labeled as age-appropriate.
References
1. Crabtree L, Lee E. Evaluation of readability and quality of online patient education materials for open-angle glaucoma treatment. BMJ Open Ophthalmol. 2022;7(1):e000966. doi: 10.1136/bimejofz-2021-000966
2. Weiss BD. Health literacy and patient safety: Help patients understand. 2nd edition. AMA Foundation; In 2007
3. Health Education England. A health literacy ‘how to’ guide. Accessed June 17, 2022. https://library.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/08/Health-literacy-how-to-guide.pdf
4. Silberg WM, Lundberg GD, Musacchio RA. Reviewing, controlling and quality assurance of medical information on the Internet: caveant lector et viewer – beware reader and viewer. Jama. 1997;277:1244-1245. doi:10.1001/jama.1997.03540390074039
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