READABILITY OF PATIENT INFORMATION BOOKLETS FOR WOMEN WITH BREAST-CANCER

Providing accurate information, in both verbal and written formats, is seen as an important component of patient care. For individuals diagn osed with cancer, acquiring information may be a particularly pertinen t issue in terms of coping with the disease. Numerous information book lets are available for people with cancer which aim to provide informa tion on various aspects of care and treatment. This British study exam ined the readability of 50 information booklets available to women wit h breast cancer using the SMOG and Flesch reading tests. Generally the information booklets were found to have a high reading age, arguably not suitable for the majority of the United Kingdom (UK) population. T his study has implications for health care professionals who provide w ritten information as a supplement or substitute for verbal informatio n. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.