Relationships among educational material readability, client literacy, perceived beneficence, and perceived quality

Illiteracy remains a pervasive problem that compromises quality health care , limits understanding of health information, and potentially leads to poor health outcomes. This study demonstrated that participants' measured readi ng level was significantly lower than both their stated years of education and readability of an educational pamphlet. A positive relationship was ide ntified between measured reading level and pamphlet helpfulness (client-per ceived beneficence). Participants perceived care quality as good to very go od. Quality client education requires use of either educational materials a ppropriate for the measured reading level of clients or alternatives to wri tten material.