Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to compare the readability of anesthesia and interventional pain-procedure patient education material across a professional society, a major hospital system, and United Kingdom sources, and to determine, through a structured search, whether comparable English-language material is available from Saudi or Gulf institutions.
Methods: A cross-sectional readability analysis was conducted for 16 publicly available English-language patient education pages on anesthesia and common interventional pain procedures, drawn from a major anesthesiology society (n = 8), an academic hospital system (n = 5), and United Kingdom National Health Service/Royal College of Anaesthetists sources (n = 3). A parallel structured search assessed the availability of comparable Gulf/Saudi materials. Readability was scored using six standard formulas, including the Flesch Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) and Flesch Reading Ease, and compared against American Medical Association (sixth-grade) and National Institutes of Health (eighth-grade) benchmarks.
Results: Mean FKGL across all 16 pages was 11.3 (SD 1.8; range 8.8-14.4), significantly above both the sixth grade (t = 11.91, p < 0.001) and eighth grade (t = 7.42, p < 0.001) benchmarks. United Kingdom sources were numerically more readable (mean FKGL 9.4) than professional-society (12.0) and hospital (11.3) sources (Kruskal-Wallis p = 0.07). No comparable Gulf-region materials meeting inclusion criteria were identified.
Conclusion: Patient education material on anesthesia and interventional pain procedures, from professional societies and major hospitals alike, remained written well above recommended reading levels, consistent with prior specialty-specific audits. The absence of comparable Gulf-region material represented a distinct, unad-dressed gap that regional anesthesiology and pain societies are well positioned to close.

Key words: Health literacy, readability, patient education, anesthesia, pain management, informed consent