No Causal Relationship in Coorlation and Regression?

Health Literacy Assessment

Christina Wagener

I completed a health literacy assessment on a common piece of education that we use in the wound care center that directs a patient how to apply an Ace Bandage.  This is a two page document that has both written instructions as well as images to assist in the patient or caregiver learning this technique correctly. When using the SMOG Readability Test, this educational piece scored an 8th grade reading level, plus or minus 1.5 grades.  I then performed a Fry Method of Readability Assessment which indicated that this same educational piece a 7th grade level with the emphasis on long words rather than long sentences.  I agree with the Fry Method as opposed to the SMOG method of determining the readability of this piece of information.  When I look at the complex words, there are some words such as compression that I do not know how you may use another easier term to describe this type of dressing.  Additionally, these are words that we use regularly in the clinic. With the images, I believe that the ease in understanding this information is quite good.  What I would like to see is this type of education in Spanish which we currently do not possess.

Ongoing assessments for health literacy is not currently managed by my department.  We use standard training documents that are provided to us from either vendors or they are very old and have started with the wound clinic.  My assumption is that some of these are from educational pacts for wound care centers that were purchased some time ago.   There may be a part of the institution where I work at that may be evaluating this, but if there is, I am unaware of it.  This may be something to evaluate relating to re-admission rates and complications that patients may experience.

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