The Readability and Accountability of Online Patient Education Materials Related to Common Oculoplastics Diagnoses and Treatments

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To assess the readability and accountability of online patient education materials related to oculoplastic diagnoses and treatments, and to determine the source of information encountered by patients searches.

Methods

We conducted a Google search for 20 search terms related to common oculoplastic diagnoses and treatments and analyzed the first 10 patient education websites populated for each term. Readability was assessed using four validated measures: Gunning Fog Index, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Simple Measure of Gobbledygook, and New Dale-Chall Readability. Accountability was assessed using 4 JAMA benchmarks on a scale of 0–4, with one point awarded for each of the following accountability criteria provided on the website: (1) including all authors and their relevant credentials (2) listing references (3) providing disclosures and (4) providing date of last update.

Results

The average grade level of 200 websites analyzed was 10.89, with 29% written at less than the 6^th grade reading level recommended by the American Medical Association. The source of online information was most frequently educational institutions (36%) and private practices (34%), with fewer online patient education materials from national organizations (18%) and crowdsourced websites (12%). There were no significant differences in readability when comparing searches related to oculoplastics diagnoses versus treatments. Websites averaged 0.91 out of a maximum of 4 recommended accountability criteria, reflecting low overall accountability.

Conclusions

Online education resources encountered by patients are often written at inappropriate reading levels and demonstrate low accountability. Online patient education materials are most frequently maintained by educational institutions and private practices, with fewer articles from national organizations. Revision of online materials may be necessary to improve health literacy among oculoplastic patients.

KEYWORDS:

• accountability
• education
• oculoplastics
• online
• patient
• readability

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

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

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.