Information about oral cancer on the Internet: our patients cannot understand it

Abstract Although information about cancer on the Internet can be beneficial to patients and physicians, to our knowledge, comprehension by patients has not been investigated. We used 3 search engines to select websites on oral cancer then assessed their readability using the Flesch-Kinkaid Reading...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of oral & maxillofacial surgery 2015-04, Vol.53 (4), p.393-395
Main Authors: Varela-Centelles, P, Ledesma-Ludi, Y, Seoane-Romero, J.M, Seoane, J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Comprehension
Consumer Health Information
Dentistry
Educational Status
Health Literacy
Humans
Internet
Mouth Neoplasms
Oral cancer
Patient education
Readability
Reading
Search Engine
Surgery
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Summary:Abstract Although information about cancer on the Internet can be beneficial to patients and physicians, to our knowledge, comprehension by patients has not been investigated. We used 3 search engines to select websites on oral cancer then assessed their readability using the Flesch-Kinkaid Reading Grade Level, Flesch Reading Ease Score, Gunning Fog Index, Coleman-Liau Index, Automated Readability Index, and the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook Index (SMOG). The mean scores for readability were within the range of “difficult to read” (FRES = 36.04 (14.87)) with high educational requirements (FKRGL = 11.44 (3.27)). This could hamper comprehension and is particularly worrying given the high percentage of people who have poor levels of literacy.
ISSN:0266-4356
1532-1940
DOI:10.1016/j.bjoms.2015.01.020