Readability of the American, Canadian, and British Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Societies’ Patient Materials
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective Patient education materials across 3 national English otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (OHNS) societies: the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (AAO‐HNS), the Canadian Society of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (CSOHNS), and Ear, Nose, and Throat United Kingdom (ENT UK) were examined to determine whether they are written at a level suitable for patient comprehension. Study Design Cross‐sectional study. Setting Online patient materials presented through OHNS national societies. Methods Readability was calculated using the Flesch‐Kincaid Grade Level, Flesch‐Kincaid Reading Ease Score, and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook Index. All public patient education materials available through the CSOHNS, AAO‐HNS, and ENT UK websites were assessed. Patient education materials were grouped into categories by subspecialty. Results In total, 128 patient materials from the 3 societies were included in the study. All 3 societies required a minimum grade 9 reading comprehension level to understand their online materials. According to Flesch‐Kincaid Grade Level, the CSOHNS required a significantly higher reading grade level to comprehend the materials presented when compared to AAO‐HNS (11.3 vs 9.9; 95% CI, 0.5‐2.4; P <. 01) and ENT UK (11.3 vs 9.4; 95% CI, 0.9‐2.9; P <. 01). Patient education materials related to rhinology were the least readable among all 3 societies. Conclusion This study suggests that the reading level of the current patient materials presented through 3 national OHNS societies are written at a level that exceeds current recommendations. Promisingly, it highlights an improvement for the readability of patient materials presented through the AAO‐HNS.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.025 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".