PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - David R. Hansberry
AU  - Kush Shah
AU  - Nitin Agarwal
AU  - Sung M. Kim
AU  - Charles M. Intenzo
TI  - Nuclear Medicine and Resources for Patients: How Complex Are Online Patient Educational Materials?
AID  - 10.2967/jnmt.117.203380
DP  - 2018 Jun 01
TA  - Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
PG  - 144--146
VI  - 46
IP  - 2
4099  - http://tech.snmjournals.org/content/46/2/144.short
4100  - http://tech.snmjournals.org/content/46/2/144.full
SO  - J. Nucl. Med. Technol.2018 Jun 01; 46
AB  - The Internet is a major source of health care information for patients. The American Medical Association and the National Institutes of Health recommend that consumer health care websites be written at a third- to seventh-grade level. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of readability of patient education websites pertaining to nuclear medicine. Methods: We searched for 10 terms on Google, collected the top 10 links for each term, and analyzed their level of readability using 10 well-established readability scales. Results: Collectively, the 99 articles were written at a grade level of 11.8 (SD, 3.4). Only 5 of the 99 articles were written at the third- to seventh-grade level recommended by the National Institutes of Health and the American Medical Association. Conclusion: There is a clear discordance between the readability level of nuclear medicine–related imaging terms and the National Institutes of Health and American Medical Association guidelines. This discordance may have a negative impact on patient understanding, contributing to poor health outcomes.