Preparing Patient Education Materials

Remember that one of the two team outcomes for your webquest is the development of a creative, persuasive, evidence-based, culturally and linguistically appropriate one-page patient education brochure or handout about infant sleeping position that your team would present to pregnant teens and their family members.

Patient education materials are challenging to develop. You will have other opportunities in future courses to refine your abilities to prepare patient education materials that are appropriate in terms of level of writing (readability) and cultural/linguistic components.

Health Literacy

The issue of health literacy is an important one. The Institute of Medicine's 2004 report entitled Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion documents the personal and economic costs associated with low health literacy. That report defines health literacy as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic information and services needed to make appropriate decisions regarding their health.

Readability is but one component required for health literacy. Health literacy also includes:

• listening
• arithmetic
• speaking
• writing
• conceptual knowledge

For the purposes of this webquest team assignment of developing a brochure or handout on a specific topic for a defined audience, you will focus primarily on readability (in terms of health literacy). Additional criteria for the brochure or handout include creativity, persuasiveness, and evidence-based. Your intent is to develop a brochure or handout that your defined audience will be able to read and understand so that they will engage in the health promotion or disease prevention activities recommended by your team.

Sites to Review for Developing a Creative, Persuasive, Evidence-based, Readable Handout or Brochure

Start out by looking at the Harvard School of Public Health's Health Literacy Website - and particularly review the section on How to Create and Assess Print Materials that was prepared by Rima Rudd.

Other sites that you will find very helpful include:

• Clear & Simple: Developing Effective Print Materials for Low-Literate Readers - developed by the National Cancer Institute
• Developing Easy to Read Patient Education Materials - developed by Kara L. Jacobson and Felicia J. Morton of the Breast Health Connection of Georgia
• Developing Patient/Family Education Print Material - developed by Capital Health Patient Education Advisory Committee in Canada
• Creating Patient Education Materials - developed by the Bio-Medical Library at the University of Minnesota
• Using Microsoft Word's Readability Feature - developed by Cathy Cavanaugh at University of North Florida
• You Can Prepare Easy-to-Read Materials - a Technical Assistance Bulletin developed by the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information

SMOG (Simplified Measure Of Gobbledygoop) Readability Formula

• A very important site from the University of Utah's Health Sciences Center focuses on the SMOG Readability Formula. It offers you precise information about calculating the SMOG formula.
• This site from Harvard University offers similar information about the SMOG Readability formula. In addition, it offers you an example of the use of the SMOG Forumla on a document so that you can see the rules and decisions in its use.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. || Contact Cynthia Russell with questions or comments. || Return to the informatics WebQuest homepage.