Readability, Content, and Quality Assessment of Online Patient Education Materials Related to Labor Analgesia in China

• In Event: 20820 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3. Reproductive Health

Abstract

Background: With China's 841 million search engine users as of June 2023, over 90% of pregnant women seek labor analgesia information online. Due to limited medical knowledge, they risk trusting inaccurate data. Currently, no systematic evaluative studies have been reported on the content coverage, accuracy, and readability of online patient education materials (OPEM) related to labor analgesia in China.
Objective：To analyze the OPEMs related to labor analgesia in China.
Methods: Resources related to labor analgesia were retrieved and screened based on search engine user habits. Three anesthesiologists assessed content coverage and accuracy. The Chinese version of the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Print was used to subjectively evaluate the understandability and actionability of the content from a medical text perspective. The intraclass correlation coefficient method was employed to analyze the consistency of the three anesthesiologists' evaluations. A machine learning approach was used to establish a Chinese readability grading model to objectively assess the readability of the included materials.
Results: A total of 97 webpages were retrieved, and 21 were included in the study. The content coverage regarding contraindications for labor analgesia was only 60.3% (53.2%-67.5%); 71.4% (15/21) of the OPEMs had a mean accuracy rate above 90%. The proportion of OPEMs that were easy to understand was 81.0% (17/21), while only 4.8% (1/21) were actionable. The ICC values for the consistency of evaluations on content coverage, accuracy, understandability, and actionability were 0.975, 0.833, 0.758, and 0.773, respectively (P<.001). Only 4.8% (1/21) of the OPEMs had readability levels that met the standards of the nine-year compulsory education level in China.
Conclusions: Although there is a significant amount of OPEMs related to labor analgesia in China, the quality needs improvement. Future efforts should focus on the collaboration between anesthesiologists and linguists to provide patients with more comprehensive, accurate, and understandable OPEMs.

Authors

• Lina Yang, Beijing Chao-yang hospital

• Yan Rui, Beijing ChaoYang Hospital

• Yongqian Zhang

• Siyi Tang

• Dong Yu

• Anshi Wu