SynthesisJournal of the American Heart Association2024
Evaluating Readability, Understandability, and Actionability of Online Printable Patient Education Materials for Cholesterol Management: A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in Journal of the American Heart Association, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 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
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- How Reliable is eHealth information on dental care in head and neck cancer? A quality evaluation.BMC oral health · 2026Article
- A Comparison of a Customized Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD)-Specific Generative AI Chatbot and General-Purpose AI Chatbots for PAD Patient Education.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- A multi-metric evaluation of readability in psychiatric discharge summaries.BioData mining · 2026Article
- Prevalence of patients with limited health literacy in rotator cuff tears and their experiences with care: a mixed-methods study.JSES international · 2026Article
- The impact of health misinformation and health literacy on the management of dyslipidemia.American journal of preventive cardiology · 2025Article
- Assessing the Readability, Quality, and Reliability of Online Patient Information Materials Related to Sarcopenia.Cureus · 2025Article
- Cultured Meat Reformulation: Health Potential and Sustainable Food Challenges-Narrative Review.Comprehensive reviews in food science and food safety · 2025Review
- Promoting Personal Health Literacy Through Readability, Understandability, and Actionability of Online Patient Education Materials.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDyslipidemia management is a cornerstone in cardiovascular disease prevention and relies heavily on patient adherence to lifestyle modifications and medications. Numerous cholesterol patient education materials are available online, but it remains unclear whether these resources are suitable for the majority of North American adults given the prevalence of low health literacy. This review aimed to (1) identify printable cholesterol patient education materials through an online search, and (2) evaluate the readability, understandability, and actionability of each resource to determine its utility in practice. METHODS AND
resultsWe searched the MEDLINE database for peer-reviewed educational materials and the websites of Canadian and American national health organizations for gray literature. Readability was measured using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, and scores between fifth- and sixth-grade reading levels were considered
conclusionsThe readability of online cholesterol patient education materials consistently exceeds the health literacy level of the average North American adult. Many resources also inadequately describe action items for individuals to self-manage their cholesterol, representing an implementation gap in cardiovascular disease prevention.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.