In your actual document, Keenan recommends including lots of white space and visuals. If the document states, “Drink plenty of water,” show a picture of an 8 oz. serving of water. Or if it says to take a certain number of pills at a certain frequency, depict that visually; you want to avoid dosing misunderstandings, such as “Take this pill twice a day,” and leave the patient thinking they can take one dose at 8 a.m. and the other at 8:05 a.m.
Use a 14-point font—helpful to the elderly or visually impaired—and include no more than seven lines of text per paragraph. Keenan also recommends no more than five inches of text per line, to help keep ample white space.
With any material that you design, staff members play a role in checking comprehension frequently and with open-ended questions, says Keenan. You can also find information online about the teach-back method, in which patients “teach” their educator about what they learned.
Vanessa Caceres is a freelance medical writer in Bradenton, Fla.
Resources to Help Create Effective Patient Education Materials
From prescription and post-op instructions to websites to consent forms or even e-mails to patients, there are times when you can’t rely completely on patient education handouts created by other sources. Use these websites to guide your practice in creating materials your patients will truly use and understand.
Patient Education Material Assessment Tool
This guide from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality helps those creating materials evaluate if patients will understand and use printed and audiovisual material they create on the basis of certain health literacy principles. The tool includes suggestions to make materials more user friendly. http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/prevention-chronic-care/improve/self-mgmt/pemat/index.html
Health Literacy Online: A Guide to Writing & Designing Easy-to-Use Health Websites
Published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. http://www.health.gov/healthliteracyonline
Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit
Designed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the toolkit addresses how health-care professionals can take a more effective approach to health literacy with all patients. http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality-patient-safety/quality-resources/tools/literacy-toolkit/index.html
References
- Caplan L, Wolfe F, Michaud K, et al. Health literacy is strongly associated with functional status among rheumatoid arthritis patients: A cross-sectional study. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2013 Sep 10. doi: 10.1002/acr.22165. [Epub ahead of print].
- Rhee RL, Von Feldt JM, Schumacher HR, et al. Readability and suitability assessment of patient education materials in rheumatic diseases. Arthritis Care Res. 65:1702–1706.
