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Readability in Ensuring Compliance in HealthCare.
Student's Name
Institution Affiliation
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Readability in Ensuring Compliance in HealthCare.
It's critical to tailor health education materials to the level of literacy of each patient. The
adequate level of the literacy skills required to comprehend the written information is the
readability of a particular text. The single most significant indicator of an individual's health state
is their health literacy. It is also the capacity to access, comprehend, and understand basic health
information and services and the expertise to use medical information and instructions to
improve health. Health literacy, therefore, creates a concern by health care providers in ensuring
compliance in the home setting.
Readability, a crucial feature of written content, influences a patient's ability to
comprehend written instructions (Raynor, 2020) affects the reader's capacity to comprehend.
Health care providers recommend that outpatient instructions should be readable at a sixth to
eighth-grade level. Medical instructions are sometimes at a comprehension level that does not
fulfil these requirements and may be too complicated for many patients to comprehend. There
are several ways for determining the readability of written content, with the SMOG formula
being one of the recommended methods. It measures readability through polysyllabic words in a
sample size of thirty successive sentences. The formula has its basis on one hundred per cent
comprehension ability, and therefore SMOG scores are higher than those obtained using other
procedures. The SMOG formula shows that the higher a patient's level of education, the simpler
it will be for them to understand instructions. The lower the level of education, the harder it
becomes for patients to comprehend instructions on their own (THE SMOG READABILITY
FORMULA, 2021).
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To ensure compliance in a practical example, discharging a patient below the sixth-grade
level requires me to guarantee there will be follow-up from a guardian in their home setting to
aid the patient in following instructions properly. Discharging a college student from the
emergency room requires less follow-up as they can comprehend instructions. Another barrier to
compliance to consider would be communication between the health care provider and the
patient. Poor communication between healthcare providers and patients may increase the risk for
malpractice cases and misinformation, whereas communicating effectively reduces
patient's anxiety, increases compliance, and enhances clinical outcomes.
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References.
Raynor, D. K. (2020). The influence of written information on patient knowledge and Adherence
to treatment. In Adherence to treatment in medical conditions (pp. 83-111). CRC Press.
Readabilityformulas.com. 2021. THE SMOG READABILITY FORMULA, a Simple Measure of
Gobbledygook. [online] Available at: <https://readabilityformulas.com/smog-readabilityformula.php> [Accessed 7 July 2021].