Prevalence of High-Quality Arabic Patient Education Materials on Type 2 Diabetes

ABSTRACT

Background

Saudi Arabia has the second-highest prevalence of diabetes in the Middle East. Therefore, providing patients with high-quality materials is essential to help them understand their illness. The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) contrasts and evaluates materials regarding understandability and actionability.

Purpose

This study aimed to evaluate materials for type 2 diabetes using a printed version of the PEMAT.

Methods

This observational study was conducted in Riyadh from December 2022 to May 2023. Sixty-nine samples were collected from hospitals affiliated with the Ministry of Health and the government sector.

Results

Materials evaluated in this study had an excellent understandability score of 78.9% and a low actionability score of 66.6%, with significant differences between the sources. Some of the materials (42%) achieved high quality regarding understandability and actionability.

Discussion

Less than half of the materials were considered high quality. Approximately 99% of the materials made their purposes completely evident and logically presented the information, and approximately 97% identified at least one action. However, only 17.4% of the materials provided summaries and tangible tools.

Translation to Health Education Practice

Health Educators should consider including summaries and tangible tools when developing patient education materials to make them more understandable and actionable.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical consideration

To gather the necessary materials from hospitals, the researchers explained the study’s purpose and made participation voluntary. They subsequently obtained approval from the Institutional Review Board (22-1025) before collecting and analyzing educational materials on December 7, 2022. The collected data is strictly for research purposes and will not be shared or disclosed.