Pamela

You might want to look at Len and Ceci's Doaks' 22-factor Suitability
Assessment of Materials or "SAM" instrument.  You can find it in their book,
"Teaching patients with low literacy skills, 2nd Ed." Lippincott, 1996, Ch.
4.  They also talk about the kinds of words that can be hard to understand.


According to the Doaks, "Users especially need examples for words that
describe a concept, a category, or a value judgment, for example, "normal
range," "legumes," "excessive bleeding," respectively.  "

Good luck with your project.

Joanne Locke
Plain Language Advisor
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
240-453-6113


-----Original Message-----
From: healthliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:healthliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Julie McKinney
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 10:53 AM
To: healthliteracy at nifl.gov
Subject: [HealthLiteracy] Looking for Validated Tool for Masters
ThesisResearch

Hi All, 

I'm passing this on from Pamela Reichel:

Dear List Serve Members:

I am working on designing my final project for my Master's degree and want
to do it on health literacy.  What I'd like to do is take a list of commonly
used words in health settings (one's that health professionals seem to
assume everyone knows) and ask folks in the community to define them.  What
I'm trying to find is a validated tool to do this.  My hypothesis is that
the general public does not understand words commonly used in healthcare
settings (I think the folks here all agree on this, but I want to prove it)
and if the project bears that hypothesis out- to present to health
professionals how all patients need clear, easy to understand patient
education and health information. 

Do any of you know of a tool like this or anyone else doing similar
research?  I'd appreciate any help you can offer.  Thanks!!

 

Pamela M. Reichel

Community Health Education Manager

Good Samaritan Hospital

2222 Philadelphia Dr., Dayton, Ohio 45406

Phone: (937) 278-6251, ext. 5220 or 5225

Fax: (937) 276-8244

Beeper (937) 636- 5713

E-mail: preichel at shp-dayton.org

Web site: www.goodsamdayton.org

 

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