Health Literacy Analytics of Accessible Patient Resources in Cardiovascular Medicine: What Are Patients Wanting to Know?

Abstract

Introduction. There remains an increasing utilization of internet-based resources as a first line for medical knowledge. Among patients with cardiovascular disease, these resources are often relied upon for numerous diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. However, the reliability of this information is not fully understood. The aim of this study is to provide a descriptive profile on the literacy quality, readability, and transparency of publicly available educational resources in cardiology.

Methods. The frequently asked questions and associated online educational articles on common cardiovascular diagnostic and therapeutic interventions were investigated using publicly available data from the Google RankBrain machine learning algorithm after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Independent raters evaluated questions for Rothwell’s Classification and readability calculations.

Results. Collectively, 520 questions and articles were evaluated across 13 cardiac interventions, resulting in 3120 readability scores. The source of articles was most frequently from academic institutions followed by commercial sources. A vast majority of questions were classified as “Fact” at 57.0% (n= 395), and questions regarding “technical details” of each intervention were most common subclassification at 56.3% (n= 293).

Conclusions. The investigation demonstrates through its findings that patients are most often using online search query programs to seek information regarding specific knowledge of each cardiovascular intervention rather than form evaluation of the intervention. Additionally, these online patient educational resources continue to not meet grade-level reading recommendations.