JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Utilization of the internet to obtain health-related information increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ongoing efforts to improve health literacy and health information transfer have underscored deficiencies in online health communication materials. Effective online health communication materials are needed to reduce the impact of misinformation and additional barriers to adequate knowledge translation.

Objective:

To evaluate current health communication assessment measures and provide a preliminary evaluation framework for improving patient-centered health information design.

Methods:

Health communication assessments included Brief DISCERN, Modified Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Clear Communication Index, Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool, Suitability Assessment of Materials, Quality Evaluation Scoring Tool, and several measures assessing readability (e.g., Flesch-Kincaid). Each assessment was completed by six raters for each of the COVID-19 US government webpages from 3/8/2021 to 4/19/2021. Interrater reliability and applicability ratings were used to evaluate the assessments.

Results:

Interrater reliability was fair-to-moderate. Assessments with fewer questions, but a higher number of response options (e.g., DISCERN) had lower interrater reliability than those with more questions and a lower number of response options (e.g., CCI). On average, all assessments were rated as moderately to very applicable, aside from the DISCERN with an average rating of moderately applicable.

Conclusions:

The lack of consistency in scores for a single website, alludes to the need for a comprehensive approach to identifying all meaningful and distinct constructs for evaluating health communication measures. Improvement efforts could be facilitated by a unified measurement framework.