Development and readability assessment of patient information leaflets for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Abstract

Patient education is one of the major management strategies for preventing the progression of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) are major patient counseling aids. Hence the PILs were developed for imparting patient education regarding COPD. Objective of the study was to develop and assess readability of patient information leaflets for COPD. PILs were developed by referring various model leaflets which were available from the different online resources such as “Patient UK”, Pubmed & MICROMEDEX Data base. Readability of the PILwas checked online by calculating Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) and Flesch Kincaid-Grade Level (FK-GL) by using the website “www.readability-score.com”. Baker Able Leaflets Design (BALD) method was used to assess the layout and design characteristics of the PIL. During the preparation of leaflet, its readability was periodically assessed using FRE and FK-GL scores. After assessment, leaflets were modified and the readability scores were reassessed which showed improvement after each modification. The best Flesch Reading Ease score achieved was 68.3 and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score achieved was 7.4. The BALD score was 27. This study strongly suggests that patient information leaflet developed by us have standard readability score and good layout design. FRE and FKGLscores have shown that the leaflet was fairly easy readable.