Development, Quality and Readability Assessment of Patient Information Leaflet for Diabetes Mellitus

Introduction: Patient health education through information leaflets plays a very important role in the understanding about diseases, drugs and lifestyle modifications in diabetes mellitus. Aim: To develop and assess the quality and readability of patient information leaflet for diabetes mellitus. Methods: patient information leaflet for diabetes mellitus was developed by referring to various online resources such as ‘Diabetes UK (NHS Lanarkshire)’ and other medical websites. The content of the developed leaflet was validated by the physicians and specialist doctors. Feedback from the experts was used to design and modify the leaflet. Readability was checked online by using the website ‘www.readabilityscore.com’ and calculated Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) and Flesch-Kincaid grade level (FK-GL). Baker Able Leaflet Design (BALD) Criterion and Ensuring Quality Information for Patients (EQIP) questionnaire was applied to assess layout and design characteristics and information quality in the developed leaflets. Results: Readability scores by using FRE and grade level by FK-GL was found to be 63.9% and 7.8 which shows that the leaflet was found to be ‘standard’ and easily understood by 13to 15-year-old students. The BALD score was 27 rated as ‘above standard’ and the EQIP score of the leaflet was found to be 70%. Conclusion: The information leaflet developed in the present study had good quality and standard readability score and layout design. The FRE scores and FK-GL grade level shows that the leaflet was easily understood by 8th and 9th grade school levels.