Readability of literature written for cardiac patients

Abstract

The readability of 28 books and leaflets available to cardiac patients at a Dublin hospital was assessed. Mean required reading age was 14.3 years, and only 21 % of the texts had a reading age of 12 or less. Fifty percent of 1088 cardiac patients attending the hospital had no more than an elementary school education and therefore would have been able to read at most one-fifth of the available patient literature.