Evaluation of the Readability of the Internet-Based Patient Education Materials Related to Sepsis

Introduction: Readability gives information about the characteristics of syllables, words and sentences of that language and whether the text is easily understood by the reader at a certain level by presenting some quantitative data about the texts. The aim of our study is to evaluate the readability of English-language patient education materials related to "Sepsis". Materials and Methods: The first 100 websites in English language were scanned using "Sepsis" as a keyword. Texts included in the study; Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), Gunning Fog, The Coleman-Liau Index, automatic readability index, and Linsear Write formulas were evaluated. The number of Latin medical words in the text were determined. Results: 48 of the first 100 websites included in the study were sites for patient information about "Sepsis". In the analysis of texts belonging to 48 websites that were evaluated, the mean FRES was 47.31 +/- 13.14 (quite difficult), the mean Gunning Fog was 13.63 +/- 3.04 (very difficult), the average FKGL and SMOG was 11.36 +/- 2.82 and 1031 +/- 2.81 years of education, respectively, The Coleman-Liau Index 11.42 +/- 1.95 years of education, automatic readability index 11.53 +/- 3.46 years of education, Linsear Write Formula 12.36 +/- 3.97 years of education was determined. According to all readability formulas, it was evaluated that the readability level was much higher than the 6th grade level. It was determined that there was a positive weak correlation between the WR score average and the FRES average of the texts, and a negative weak correlation between the Google rank and the Latin word average. Conclusion: While the analysis of the texts related to sepsis in our study was found to be quite difficult in terms of FRES and Gunning Fog values, it was determined that the texts addressed individuals with 10-13 years of education according to the values of FKGL, SMOG, Coleman-Liau Index, automatic readability index, and Linsear Write Formula. In our study, the readability level of internet-based patient education materials related to "Sepsis" was found to be quite high.