Health websites are too complicated - Internet - physician writing guidelines on child health services online - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Oct, 2002

Information provided on the Internet about children's health care is often too difficult for most adults to understand, according to a University of Iowa, Iowa City, Health Care study. The researchers randomly selected and analyzed children's health information from 89 different authoritative websites, and found that pediatric health care material was written, on average, at a 12th-grade level, although the typical American adult reads at an eighth-or ninth-grade level. It also identified ways health care providers can improve their writing to make online pediatric patient education materials more understandable.

"This literacy issue has significant implications for children's health care because adults are the people pediatricians need to educate the most about how to help their children," asserts Donna D'Alessandro, associate professor of pediatrics. "In addition, people are turning more and more to the Internet for consumer health information for children as well as for themselves."

It was thought that pediatric materials might be more readable than other health information since pediatricians deal with children and tend to use simpler language. However, in addition to finding that most materials were written at a 12th-grade level, the study revealed that authorship did not necessarily determine how readable a text would be. "Physicians weren't any worse than the nurses, and professional societies weren't any better than commercial companies," D'Alessandro notes. "So it was across the board that the materials were consistently too difficult."

The researchers have made specific recommendations to improve the readability of online pediatric information, including the following:

* Use simple words (doctor, not physician).

* Use several words to explain a concept (curving of the spine, not scoliosis).

* Avoid jargon (instead of "The kidneys filter the blood" say "The kidneys wash the blood").

* Use tables and pictures.

* Provide a glossary of words that will be found in the text.

* Keep sentences short--10-word length is ideal and 15 words should be the maximum.