RPS Conference 2010, Abstracts 2010 - Royal Pharmaceutical Society

study shows that 55% of the leaflets analysed failed to reflect this readability level
compromising their usefulness for patients. When design factors were improved for edited
leaflets, the target Flesch-Kincaid readability level of 8.0 was achieved for 6 leaflets indicating
that further work is required to achieve a better readability for the remaining 7 edited leaflets.
Table 1: Presence of design features in the leaflets (n=179)
Design Factor
Number of leaflets
Text organization Use of paragraphs 50
Use of paragraphs and bullets 129
Text/background colour Black text on white background 92
Coloured text on white background 86
Coloured text on coloured background 1
Pictorial representations 126
Active rather than passive tense 75
Boldface and underlining 178
Medical terms explained 118
References:
1. Bradley B, Singleton M, Li Wan PO A. Readability of patient information leaflets on over-the
counter (OTC) medicines. J Clin Pharm Ther 1994; 19: 7-15.
2. Smith CR, Smith CA. Patient Education Information: Readability of Prosthetic Publications. J
Prosthetics & Orthotics 1994; 6: 113-118.