Computerized versus hand-scored health literacy tools: a comparison of Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) and Flesch-Kincaid in printed patient education materials

Abstract

Computerized health literacy assessment tools, used by many national patient education material providers, might not be representative of the actual reading grade levels of patient education materials. This is problematic in regions like Appalachia because materials may not be comprehensible to the area's low-literacy patients. Medical librarians have the potential to advance their role in patient education to better serve their patient populations.