Assessing the Readability, Quality, and Reliability of Online Patient Information Materials Related to Sarcopenia

TL;DR

This study assessed online patient information about sarcopenia and found that the content is too complex for average readers and lacks sufficient readability and quality.

Contribution

The study evaluates readability, quality, and reliability of sarcopenia-related online patient education materials using multiple standardized tools.

Findings

All readability scores exceeded the recommended 6th-grade level, indicating content is too complex for general readers.

Health portals were found to be the best category in terms of readability, reliability, and quality.

No significant differences were found in quality scores across different website types.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the readability, quality, and reliability of online patient education materials (PEM) related to sarcopenia.

Materials and methods: In August 2024, 278 websites obtained by searching the term ‘sarcopenia’ on Google were evaluated. After applying the exclusion criteria, 66 websites were included in the study. The ranks of the websites were evaluated with Blexb (New York, USA), readability evaluations were done with calculators, and quality and reliability were evaluated per the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Global Quality Scale (GQS), and modified Decision Index for Systematic Consumer Evaluation of Reviewed Narratives (DISCERN) criteria.

Results: The readability values of the contents were compared with the 6th-grade level (GRL), and all results were significantly higher than the 6th GRL (p<0.01). The median values in the readability assessment of the 66 websites included in the study were as follows: Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) 40.81 (6.10-72.84), Gunning Fog (GFOG) 14.78 (9.10-22.20), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) 12.18 (7.16-18.58), Coleman-Liau (CL) score 12.89 (7.14-18.45), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) 12.34 (7.77-17.65), Automated Readability Index (ARI) 12.49 (7.70-19.64), Linsear Write (LW) 13.30 (6.89-25.05), and GRL 15.25 (8.00-23.00). The types of websites were compared in terms of readability levels, and no significant difference was found. When the website typologies were compared, no significant difference was observed in GQS, JAMA, and DISCERN. A low-level negative correlation was found between Blexb rank and JAMA. The correlations between Blexb rank and readability scales were as follows: weak negative correlation with FRES and ARI scores and weak positive correlation with GFOG, FKGL, CL, and SMOG scores (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The best category in terms of readability, reliability, and quality was determined to be health portals, but none of the websites had readability at or below the recommended 6th GRL.