ArticleAmerican heart journal plus : cardiology research and practice2023
Assessing readability and comprehension of web-based patient education materials by American Heart Association (AHA) and CardioSmart online platform by American College of Cardiology (ACC): How useful are these websites for patient understanding?
Article in American heart journal plus : cardiology research and practice, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Patient and clinician engagement with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI): A scoping review of implications for patient-centered communication.Patient education and counseling · 2026Article
- Educational Value and Reliability of Exosome Therapy Videos on YouTube: A Cross-Sectional Quality Assessment.International wound journal · 2026Article
- Performance of large language models in delivering accurate and comprehensible patient information on heart failure and cardiomyopathy.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Evaluating large language models for myocardial infarction public health education: a comparative study on information quality, transparency and readability.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Evaluating the Readability, Accessibility, and Quality of Online Health Information on Opioid Use Disorder: A Comparative Analysis of Government and Non-Government Websites.Advances in health information science and practice · 2026Article
- Feeding intelligence: comparative evaluation of ChatGPT and clinical guidelines for nutritional management in head and neck cancer.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Article
- The ABCs of PEMs: Using Artificial Intelligence to Enhance the Readability of Patient Educational Materials in Pediatric Orthopaedics.Journal of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America · 2025Article
- Assessing the Readability and Quality of Web-Based Resources on Exercise Stress Testing: Cross-Sectional Readability and Quality Analysis.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Readability of patient education materials on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.European heart journal. Imaging methods and practice · 2025Article
- Enhancing the Readability of Online Patient Education Materials Using Large Language Models: Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Evaluating AI-Generated Patient Education Guides: A Comparative Study of ChatGPT and Deepseek.Cureus · 2025Article
- Readability of Orthopaedic Patient Educational Material: An artificial intelligence application.Journal of clinical orthopaedics and trauma · 2025Article
- Article
- Changes in Health Education Literacy After Structured Web-Based Education Versus Self-Directed Online Information Seeking in Patients Undergoing Carpal Tunnel Release Surgery: Nonrandomized, Controlled Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- An Analysis of the Readability of Public-Facing Information Relating to Prevention of Infectious Diseases by Vaccination.British journal of biomedical science · 2025Article
- Gaps in Heart Failure Care: The Need for Effective Communication and Health Literacy-concordant Patient Education.US cardiology · 2025Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are a leading cause of morbidity & mortality worldwide. Patient education materials help patients understand the disease and its management. Health literacy is an important challenge that may contribute to health inequities and disparities. The National Institute of Health and American Medical Association recommend patient education materials to be ≤6th-grade reading level. Objective: To evaluate readability and comprehension of patient education materials related to CVD, available at the American Heart Association (AHA) & CardioSmart web platform by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) websites. Method: We examined the readability and comprehension of 63 patient education materials (accessed June 2022) using: (a) Flesch Kincaid Readability Ease (FKRE): measures readability (0-100, goal > 70), (b) Flesch Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) (goal = grade 7). We compared the AHA and ACC scores using descriptive and Results: Sixty-three web pages of patient education materials (AHA 24, ACC 39) were reviewed in June 2022. Mean ± standard deviation (SD) FKRE was 54.9 ± 6.8 for all the web pages. FKRE 50-60 equates to "fairly difficult to read." Mean ± SD FKGL was 10.0 ± 1.3. AHA patient education materials content was significantly more difficult to read and comprehend, were longer, and had more complex words than ACC patient education materials. Conclusions: CVD-related patient education materials available online through leading national organizations are not congruent with the recommendations from national healthcare organizations. They are not as user-friendly as they can be. Urgent recognition of the gaps and unmet needs are indicated to optimize patient health literacy.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.