ارزيابي شاخص هاي طراحي و قابليت خواندن خبرنامه هاي آموزشي تهيه شده به منظور كاهش بيماري هاي غيرواگير

Assessing the readability of written patient education materials in the prevention of non-communicable diseases (TLGS)

Introduction:The study aimed at evaluating the readability and efficacy of design of health-related newsletters in the reduction of prevalence of non-communicable diseases. Materials and Methods: Of 15005 participants in the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study (TLGS) , 5633 underwent the interventional program. Of these 300 households were randomly selected for this study. This investigation employed three tools to assess the efficacy of the publications mentioned; a questionnaire, the Maine Area Health Education Center checklist (AHEC) , and the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) readability formula. Three health newsletters were evaluated and the results of AHEC scores were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Results: The response rate of the study was 52%, i.e. 154 completed questionnaires were returned from the selected families. 57% of these subjects had educational levels below high school diplomas and 43% were high school graduates or above. No significant difference was seen between the two sexes. Of the population evaluated, 3% were under 10 years of age, 24% were between 11 and 20, and 68% were over 20 years old. Based of AHEC criteria, the efficacy of the educational materials assessed was 77.8%. Characteristics of the AHEC criteria using for the three reading materials were 2316-310, 2313±312 and 2313±218 respectively. There was no significant difference in the result of the above-mentioned factors. The readability score was 9-10. Conclusion: All the three patient education materials assessed were determined to be relatively appropriate with regard to design and readability in the prevention of NCD for the population assessed.